It seems today will prove to be another terrible day for cryptocurrency trading. Holders of Bitcoin and altcoins will especially not want to look at their portfolios too much. Fans of XRP will have noticed the momentum is slowly turning against this digital asset again. After hitting US$1.60 over the weekend, the XRP price is now heading back toward US$1.25 and perhaps lower. The cryptocurrency markets are under a lot of pressure right now; that much is evident.
Another bad day for XRP Price Speculators
Any cryptocurrency-related gains recorded over the weekend were all but wiped out during the first half of Monday. None of the top cryptocurrencies are even remotely close to scoring any significant profits. The average 24-hour loss is close to 6.5% right now. In the case of the XRP price, the drop was a bit steeper, as it dipped by 9.42% over the past 24 hours. For those who had assumed the markets would recover again, it seems we have hit another major roadblock.
Just this weekend, it seemed all markets were finally recovering. Even the Bitcoin price hit US$13,000 at one point, although the joy was rather short-lived. For XRP, surging past US$1.50 was considered to be a strong sign of recovery. Nothing could have been further from the truth, however, as the value hasn’t remained stable at all. In fact, the XRP price is eyeing a return to US$1.25 in the coming hours. Depending on how the markets evolve, the price may go a lot lower than that.
It is a bit unclear what has triggered the latest massive sell-off in the cryptocurrency market. Since the weekend, almost US$90 billion has been removed from the total market cap. This happened last week as well. That particular move pushed the XRP price all the way down to US$0.98. It is not impossible that we will see history repeat itself so soon. For XRP holders, that would not be a positive turn of events, but it is only normal in this bearish market.
Furthermore, it seems all markets suddenly have far less trading volume than before. Over the weekend, we saw an average of US$35 billion in 24-hour volume, which is more than respectable. Right now, the markets have combined for a total of US$27.4 billion. Close to US$1.72 billion of that amount has come from XRP trading. It’s not the worst daily trading volume we have seen for this digital asset, but it does indicate the entire cryptocurrency market has become a lot less appealing all of a sudden.
With most of XRP’s trading volume originating from South Korean exchanges, it’s not hard to see why there is little fresh capital entering the industry right now. The only notable exception is Bitfinex’s XRP-USD market, which generated US$136.2 million in the last 24 hours. Almost 55% of all trades have come from South Korea, which has no impact on the global average XRP price on CoinMarketCap. It is evident we need more USD and EUR gateways for digital assets and cryptocurrencies in the near future.
If anyone had a crystal ball, he or she would perhaps be able to make an accurate XRP price prediction. Without such a tool, it is impossible to tell what will happen to the markets over the next few days. Right now, it seems the industry’s total market cap will retrace to US$500 billion sooner than it can return to US$600 billion. Given how this cycle occurs every year around this time, there is nothing to be even remotely concerned about just yet. By March or April, things should hopefully return to normal.
