Ripple (XRP Coin) Cryptocurrency Investment Pros vs Cons: 2018 Outlook

Global Coin Report’s Complete Look At Investing In XRP Token

The XRP token is one that has been questioned on multiple occasions. Recently, the token made headlines in what appears like an uncertainty related to its real-life uses. At the time of writing, XRP holds third position with its market cap, volume and token price sitting at USD$14 billion, USD$316 million and USD$0.35 respectively.

As per Global Coin Report, XRP has its positives and negatives, which investors should consider prior to making large investments. Here is a quick look at what they perceived as the pros and cons of XRP.

Ripple Pros

According to the post, three pros were emphasized, which include Ripple’s ability to increase user adoption, secure partnerships and the XRP token’s relatively low prices.

Ripple’s products have been brought up in previous arguments as initiating efficient and cost-effective protocols. For instance, xRapid, was designed to minimize liquidity costs for payment providers, while ensuring that customer satisfaction is met. Furthermore, time efficiency is said to come out of this project, as it takes less than three minutes to validate a transaction. Its 1500 transaction per second was also noted, which is superior to the likes of Bitcoin [BTC].

The second case made is clearly Ripple’s partnerships, of which most are with financial institutions. This creates a sense of trust and increased confidence in the XRP token, as the current crypto market has been cursed with fluctuations, scams and theft to name a few.

Lastly, the token’s relatively low price and stagnation is deemed as a pro to invest in. USD$0.35 is not as much compared to investing in fractions of BTC, which remains expensive, especially with its high transaction fees. Since the beginning of February 2018, the XRP token has not seen drastic drops in prices and managed to stick around the 0.20 to 0.40 ranges (that is after its drop from about USD$2.27).

Ripple Cons

Now that a look at the pros have been covered, Global Coin Report considers Ripple’s limited use and regulatory concerns as being the most problematic.

The problem of use case seems to be coming up over and over again for Ripple, and according to the report, whether it be Ripple’s xRapid or xCurrent products, neither still has successfully provided strong use cases.

In particular, the case made involves Ripple’s numerous partnerships, as its increases does not bring newer use cases. Furthermore, with more and competition surfing the crypto sphere, Ripple’s competitive edge might simply die off.

As previously reported by Bitcoin Exchange Guide, parent company, Ripple Labs has since been faced with several lawsuits for manipulating tokens. Similarly, the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s classification of cryptocurrencies had XRP in a sticky situation for a long time. Hopefully, Ripple’s accusation of increased control will gradually be resolved, as the payments provider has been making the necessary efforts to create a more decentralized system.

Final Thoughts

Overall, an interesting perspective has been shared in whether one should invest in XRP or not. However, many of the points made can be argued both ways.

For instance, Ripple’s partnership with financial institutions have previously been frowned upon by crypto investors, namely because of the involvement of a centralized system. Furthermore, increased partnerships do not necessarily mean user adoption, as TRON also established multiple partnerships only to see its token price stagnated.

The one point that is considered both a positive and negative here is that of user adoption, that is, Ripple does have useful products, but whether they are enough is the big question to consider.