XRP Prices Remain Stable Despite Turbulence in the Market as Ripple Looks for Product Adoption

XRP prices have remained stable despite circulating problems in the cryptocurrency markets. It is no surprise that the cryptocurrency markets have been experiencing turbulence, with the majority of the prices hitting unimaginable bottoms. As the cryptos continue to attract fewer investments due to unattractive prices, XRP has surprisingly stayed afloat and maintained stable prices.

XRP Current Developments

XRP has maintained its price with a 1.5% rise in the USD price and a 1% fall in the BTC value. Interestingly, Forbes has listed the value of circulating XRP at 99.99 bn. This is odd considering that over 50 billion tokens are kept in escrow accounts.

There have also been discussions on how the Korean markets impact the price and the supply of XRP. Early this year, in January, CoinMarketCap removed South Korean exchanges from its listings, causing a dip in XRP. CoinMarketCap generates averaged prices for cryptocurrencies by using data from several major global exchanges. According to CoinMarketCap, the decision was based on the extreme divergent prices from the rest of the world and a limited arbitrage opportunity.

Ripple lost over $20 billion in market capitalization and experienced a price drop of more than 30%. XRP users complained that CoinMarketCap failed to alert them, causing panic sales, which led to a price drop. However, Forbes recent update on XRP circulation has not yet elicited rapid sales or price changes. Ripple is also yet to comment on the matter. For now, only time will tell if this development will create panic or not.

Why Is XRP Different?

XRP differs from other cryptocurrencies, in that, there exists a consistent amount of coins circulating in the market. Ripple released 100 billion XRP tokens and this remains the maximum amount there will ever be. Unlike Bitcoin that requires mining or Ether which has no limit, XRP has a cap.

Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin were created to facilitate peer-to-peer transactions with the goal of eliminating third parties such as banks and governments. XRP was instead created to serve financial institutions as a bridge currency. Ripple developed XRP to represent the transfer of values across the Ripple Network. Users can make payments in any currency with minimal fees. XRP allows banks to make fast and simple cross-border payments without middlemen and this eliminates huge transaction fees involved.

In addition, XRP exhibits extremely fast transactions with record-breaking speeds of up to 4 seconds. Other token transactions take more than 10 minutes or even hours depending on how congested the network is. Also, unlike most cryptocurrencies that are decentralized and do not have single authority ownership, Ripple owns 61 billion of the 100 billion XRP. It is claimed that Ripple holds the tokens in an escrow account and systematically releases them to clients.

While most cryptocurrencies separate themselves from financial institutions, Ripple seems to encourage the idea. Critics are uncomfortable with the idea because for them cryptos should be decentralized, while supporters feeling that centralization comes with security and longevity of the coin.