Ripple (XRP) is the sixth largest cryptocurrency in market capitalization value, with a market cap surpassing $30.4 billion. It is a crypto that many institutional investors have been betting on over the past couple of years, with multiple money transfer platforms and large banks leveraging it already for fast and low-cost international transactions.
XRP has been on the top ten list of CoinMarketCap for more than ten years. By 2017, it suddenly rose to occupy the top 3 positions on this list and stayed there for a few years until the coin came in cross-hairs with the US SEC regulator.
While Bitcoin maximalists hate XRP and all other significant and small-cap altcoins, XRP has its fast army of holders who have been storing this coin for many years and buy it every time the price goes down, adding more coins to their XRP stashes.
From late 2020 until 2023, XRP could have been in a better position on the market. However, it remains on the top ten list, and things see a particular improvement for this popular crypto asset in the summer of 2023.
Project's history in brief
Ripple Labs was founded in 2013, first as NewCoin, then rebranded as OpenCoin, and finally, the title was changed to Ripple. The company received the rights to use the XRP Ledger created in 2012 (one of its founders, David Schwartz, is Ripple's chief technology officer) along with 100 billion XRP.
Until 2017, XRP did not see much price action and was not in the focus of attention of multiple financial institutions as it is now. Back then, Ripple founder Chris Larsen and CEO Brad Garlinghouse gradually made sales of XRP to financial institutions and on the secondary markets.
In 2017, XRP started rising, and in January 2018, primarily pushed by the Bitcoin price's all-time high of $20,000, XRP amazed the cryptocurrency community by soaring to a historic peak of $3.84. It was reached on January 4. This peak allowed XRP to take hold of the top 3 positions by market cap size.
XRP saw its next vital price record in April 2021, again pushed up by Bitcoin printing another all-time high above $63,000. XRP gained momentum and reached $1.8 per coin.
In December 2020, the US SEC, under the rule of Jay Clayton, started a legal suit against Ripple, claiming that XRP is an unregistered security. XRP price crashed, delisting the coin from many leading crypto exchanges.
The lawsuit continues, now led by another SEC chair, Gary Gensler. In the summer of 2023, Ripple scored a significant win against the regulator as the federal judge ruled that XRP sales on cryptocurrency exchanges and algorithms do not qualify as investment contracts. This drove the XRP price briefly to $0.7.
XRP price prediction 2024
While many investors wonder how the XRP token will perform after the significant court victory, cryptocurrency analyst Grzegorz Drozdz at Conotoxia believes the judge's ruling may provide further momentum for XRP price growth. Still, this SEC suit needs to be fully resolved. Drozdz elaborated that the future trajectory of the XRP price seems somewhat definite at the moment.
However, the analyst provided a bullish and bearing scenario for XRP without any particular figures. But Drozdz and investors expect that if Ripple continues its winning spree in court against the SEC, it may increase the XRP's chances of skyrocketing. Besides, Ripple's chain of customers includes more than 300 financial institutions, including several central banks in various corners of the world.
Since the start of January, the XRP price has declined by 13.85%. A bear case is also possible, according to the analyst, though. After Ripple's win and XRP's quick jump to $0.7, the price dropped significantly as traders' interest suddenly dropped, with many selling their XRP holdings to lock in high profits.
The World Bank classifies Ripple as a stablecoin
Earlier this week, it became known that the World Bank released a document in November 2021 about stablecoins and digital currencies for international payments. The report contained reviews of all recent attempts to leverage stablecoins and cryptocurrencies for payment transfers.
In particular, two significant coins were picked as the most suitable ones for this purpose – XRP and its rival XLM. World Bank experts believe these two digital currencies may qualify as stablecoins. If banks indeed start using XRP for cross-border transactions, this may significantly increase the coin's adoption, thus considerably boosting its price.
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