We have seen quite a few cryptocurrencies undergo a pump-and-dump cycle throughout the past few days. Bitcoin Cash was the first, followed by Monero – which seems to be maintaining its price – and now Ripple’s XRP asset is skyrocketing as well. All three currencies have one thing in common: the majority of their trading volume during the day of the value increase came from Korea’s Bithumb exchange. Owners of the XRP asset will be quite pleased with how things are going, although it remains to be seen if the increased value will remain locked in place.
What is Going on With the XRP Price These Days?
A lot of people were quite surprised when the XRP price hit US$0.33 earlier this year. In fact, that occurred in May of 2017, which almost feels as if it were years ago. We have seen so many changes in the world of cryptocurrency over the past few weeks and XRP is certainly a part of those changes. After its initial bull run in May, things took a turn for the worse as far as XRP was concerned. Its price continuously declined for weeks on end and eventually settled around the US$0.14 mark.
Considering that there are over 38 billion XRP in circulation right now, that value is still relatively high. With the recent XPR price increase pushing the value to US$0.28, the market cap has grown to US$10.77 billion. And considering that Ripple’s market cap jumped from under US$1 billion to this number during 2017, it’s not hard to see that the digital asset has been successful. In fact, its success is quite similar to that of some of the main cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Unfortunately, it is hard to predict how things will evolve for the XRP price moving forward. After all, the current price action has all the signs of a clear pump-and-dump scheme. Some users may not like to hear that, but it is evident there are forces at work here which are bound to influence the XRP price over the coming hours and potentially even days. With South Korea’s Bithumb exchange bringing in over US$1 billion in trading volume and the other Korean exchanges generating more than US$650 million in combined volume, it is evident this momentum wouldn’t take place were it not for South Korea.
We have seen similar momentum where Bitcoin Cash was concerned a few days ago. For some unknown reason, the BCH price went up quite a bit before eventually crashing down again. Right now, the BCH price remains unsuccessful in its attempt to stabilize, and the current mining difficulty increase has made it unprofitable to mine Bitcoin Cash. The coming days and weeks will not be easy for Bitcoin Cash, even though its network hashrate has grown a bit. On the other hand, the network blocks are pretty far apart once again, resulting in about one block being found every hour today. That is not a positive sign by any means.
Focusing back on the XRP price for a minute, it is evident the trading volume across Korean exchanges could dry up at any given moment. If that were the case, nearly 75% of all current XRP volume would be wiped away in a heartbeat. That would subsequently result in a major XRP price decrease, although no one can tell where things would end up. It is not unlikely we will see an entire XRP price retrace over the coming days, depending on how long the volume across Korean exchanges remains this high. If history is a guide, it will not last long.
There is no denying Ripple and its XRP asset have their places in the financial sector. This is not your average cryptocurrency either by any means. XRP is a digital asset that is not designed to rival Bitcoin, Ethereum or any other major cryptocurrency. Instead, it is designed to change the financial sector as a whole in its own way. Various financial institutions are already paying attention to what the company has been doing with its technology; that much is evident. However, the value of XRP remains to be determined by the market, rather than by speculators and daytraders.
