Ripple and XRP – Revolution or Scam?

Ripple has been booming lately as more and more financial institutions have started to use the service for its fast transactions and extremely low fees. As banks seek to move away from the somewhat outdated SWIFT system, the Ripple protocol and it’s token XRP has risen up as a viable alternative. Ripple is also a very controversial coin, with proponents talking about interest from banks and opponents worried about centralization and lack of real world adoption.

Will there be a demand for Ripple and XRP

Previously, there were concerns about the use of the token. In theory, it is possible to use the Ripple payment protocol without the XRP token and people were left to wonder about it’s worth. However, Ripple has recently tweeted that, “3 of the top 5 global money transfer companies plan to use XRP in payment flows in 2018”.

Furthermore, the CEO of Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse, has also confirmed that banks and payment providers plan to use xRapid (the XRP liquidity product) in a serious way.

Future outlook for Ripple – serious challenger to bitcoin or scam?

Ripple, currently second in market capitalization, has been continuing on an upward trend. At press time, the altcoin was trading at an average of $3.36. With a market cap of over $131 billion, it is over half that of bitcoin.

One thing to take note of though is the high supply of Ripple. Bitcoin will only ever have at most, 21 million coins in circulation. Ripple currently has over 38 billion XRP issued. If we set the supply of Ripple to 21 million, using its current market cap, each coin would be over $6,200. And looking at it that way might ward off potential investors.

The success of Ripple and other altcoins have led to an all time low for bitcoin dominance at 33.3 percent. With this recent news, will we finally be seeing a challenger to bitcoin for the top of the crypto throne or is just another flash in pan? One thing for certain is that 2018 is sure to bring much more exciting news for crypto.

Ripple Total supply vs Circulating Supply

The XRP token was created with a significant portion of it reserved for development of the coin. Unlike mining, these coins can be issued out by the owners  (either the founders of ripple or Ripple Labs).  This is a large difference between the circulating supply and the total supply as well, with almost 60% of XRP left to be distributed.

If XRP had the same supply as Bitcoin the Price would be walloping $18,953!

Previous articleCrypto Catchup – Christmas edition
Next articleKorean Exchange Ban “not finalized”
Ben is a cryptocurrency China correspondent who loves Bitcoin and Bananas. He has been covering the Chinese cryptocurrency market for the past 5 years and has a deep understanding of the industry. He is passionate about the potential of blockchain technology and its impact on the world economy.

6 COMMENTS

  1. XRP faces no real challengers at the moment. The huge supply and 2/3 being held in escrow are factors that can not be overlooked. The dependency on conventional financial institutions are being challenged by decentralized alternatives which should decrease the demand for XRP in the near future. Tokens with additional features and functionality are being developed more and more as the technology develops. I for one believe the current price is inflated and should settle back to the .25 to .27 range sometime soon. This is just my opinion and not investment advice.

  2. Can you explain what you mean about 1B per month withdraw? I don’t understand what that will do to the value of XRP.

  3. Ripple creators put a crypto-lock on the non-marketed XRP. So they can only put a portion (sell XRP that was not available for trading before) per month out there. I am not 100% sure, but I think Michael refers to the amount that they can sell combined with the current exchange value. So they could sell the worth of 1B per month. Making them very rich and potentially cause inflation, a decrease of the XRP value

  4. They dont sell it …. They dont need to man they own enough if they wanted to get rich its already done. they gift majority to financial instituitons who agree to test out RIpple Connect and its an instentive for them to use the currency nativve to the ledger … XRP. and 2 the banks save money on each transaction made with with XRP like a few dollars per transaction opposed to using fiat .

    the left over coins get put back into escrow for the 55th month to control potential inflation from the XRP being added to circulation

  5. Great point demonstrating how different coin supplies lead to a significantly different coin valuations. I have heard many exclaim that coin X is “cheap as it’s under £10”, market capitalization is a much better measure. Adjusting the supply of other coins to that of Bitcoin is a neat way of looking at it, thanks for sharing.

Comments are closed.