XRP has dropped around 20% this year, a glaring contrast to a near 105% plus for bitcoin. XRP was at $0.35 on January the first while it hovers around $0.29 right now. Bitcoin surged from $4600 to $9200.
Keeping in mind that other altcoins have also struggled to match bitcoin’s advance, XRP has definitely disappointed in this year. Other major coins such as ethereum, the second-biggest by market value have stood firm and trade around the same value as in the beginning of the year.
The price drop has come despite XRP doing good in terms of fundamentals – the token established some traction in the global payments business.
So what caused this poor XRP performance?
Many traders put the blame on the Ripple, the company behind the XRP token (even though the decoupling of Ripple and XRP has been going strong in 2019). Ripple’s sales of XRP have hiked up pressure on prices and kept the XRP price well below a super sturdy resistance at $0.30.
Many holders noticed the pattern – every bitcoin rally that boosted the rest of the market as well, failed to lift XRP that is stuck below 30 cents no matter what news of market-wide movements happen around it. Fingers have been pointed at Ripple Inc, as some traders allege that Ripple times their sales during these mini rallies to offload some XRP without crashing the price.
Ripple holds over 50 billion XRP tokens in escrow accounts and every month programmatically sells directly to the market to boost liquidity.
Ripple’s Monica Long shrugged off the price moves.
“We think about XRP price and volatility over a longer arc of time, not day-to-day or week-to-week, but rather over the course of years,” she said.
“What we’re focused on – what we think will build greater stability in the asset – is its utility and liquidity.”
Ripple stands firm and has no intention of quitting the big sales of XRP. In fact, after some traders’ accusations, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse argued that his company needs to dump XRP to make the ecosystem grow:
XRP holders do not like it
A quick glance in XRP communities will paint a clear picture – divide between those who are mad at the price development and accuse Ripple of artificially tempering the XRP price and the other side that pleads for patience and trust in Ripple and their plan.
Still, some market players said the heavy supply of XRP in markets pushed prices down and thus makes it unpopular with longer-term investors.
