Ripple is a private company that built the global digital payments platform RippleNet in order to connect banks, payment providers and exchanges. RippleNet is built on top of the XRP Ledger, an open-source blockchain technology that settles transactions in a matter of seconds. The native asset of the XRP Ledger is the XRP cryptocurrency, which was designed to facilitate fast, cheap and scalable payments around the world.

XRP has a long history, including some pretty dramatic price movements. If you want to understand why, then this is the guide for you! Keep reading to find out all about XRP’s past price action and the factors affecting it.

Ripple Price History

Although XRP price movements haven’t been quite as dramatic as Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies, it nevertheless had its moments and proved highly volatile at times. 

XRP entered the market in 2012 with a value of $0.01. It failed to make any significant gains for the next year or so, dropping by as much as 70%. The first bit of excitement for XRP came at the end of 2013 when its price surged by an impressive 850% in less than a fortnight to reach almost $0.06. This was immediately followed by a crash back down to $0.014 that was just as sudden as its meteoric rise.

After dropping below a cent again, there was a brief recovery to almost $0.03 at the end of 2014 – before prices returned to under $0.01 yet again. This was followed by a couple of years of sideways movement, mostly between half a cent and 1 cent, and then in 2017, things really started to get interesting.

In April, the market cap of XRP surpassed $1 billion for the first time, and then in May, XRP price shot up to $0.38. It then experienced some retracement and more sideways movement until the price skyrocketed at the end of 2017 and start of 2018. 

In the space of a month, [guidelink xrp] gained almost 1,400% to set an all time high of $3.61. The price of XRP once again crashed back down, and despite a couple of upswings, notably at the end of 2020 and the start of 2021, price hasn’t managed to get back above $1 since.

Analyzing Ripple’s Price History

Like many cryptocurrencies, XRP price follows what’s known as a ‘boom-and-bust’ cycle. This is a pattern where growing excitement causes a spike in interest and a sudden explosive surge in price, at which point doubt and disillusionment set in – resulting in an equally sudden crash.

The overall price chart for Ripple looks somewhat familiar, appearing mostly flat with a huge spike at the end of 2017/start of 2018. This is because it mirrors the movement of Bitcoin and many other coins. The first two major surges for XRP came at the end of 2013 and the end of 2017, both coinciding with epic Bitcoin bull runs. Whenever there’s a spike in Bitcoin interest and adoption, a sort of trickle-down effect often occurs, where the Bitcoin hype shines some light on other cryptocurrencies too and they, in turn, receive a price boost of their own.

XRP’s upswings in 2020 and 2021, however, may have been less Bitcoin-related. In 2020, the Flare network announced that their native Spark tokens would be airdropped to all XRP holders, so it’s possible that the XRP price surge in November was influenced by people purchasing XRP in time for the airdrop snapshot in December.

The rally in early 2021, on the other hand, was primarily due to a coordinated buying campaign orchestrated through social media.

Neither of these surges gained enough momentum to propel XRP to anywhere near its previous high, though, and XRP didn’t follow Bitcoin on its 2020/2021 bull run like many other altcoins. A likely determinant in this was the announcement at the end of 2020 by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it was initiating legal proceedings against Ripple, and its CEO and Co-founder Brad Garlinghouse.

Factors Influencing The Price of XRP (Ripple)

The price of XRP is affected by many of the things you’d expect – news about Ripple, project developments, the flow of assets on exchanges, sentiment and shifts in the wider crypto markets and the economy as a whole.

The ongoing legal proceedings against Ripple are a key factor in XRP price. The announcements by the SEC caused many cryptocurrency exchanges to delist XRP, and a lack of places to trade the cryptocurrency will stunt its growth. A resolution in the case would remove some of the uncertainty that’s been plaguing XRP markets, and could result in the cryptocurrency being relisted on exchanges and experiencing a growth in price and market cap.

XRP has a capped maximum coin supply, so its value won’t be depreciated by inflation. Also, when transactions are made on the XRP Ledger, the sender must pay a small amount of XRP that will be burned and deducted from the total supply. While this increases the scarcity of the asset, it is unlikely to have a big effect on XRP price as it would take 70,000 years to destroy all XRP at the current rate. It does, however, serve to add a small deflationary effect to the supply.

XRP was intended as a medium of exchange, rather than a store of value. This means that its price will most likely be influenced by increased adoption of XRP by institutions – specifically for facilitating global payments. However, many institutions are still reluctant to use it while it displays such high volatility. 

The XRP community and social media could also influence the price if they drive grassroots retail investment.

Live Ripple XRP Value and Market Cap

The live price of XRP varies from moment to moment as it’s dictated by the balance of buyers and sellers on exchanges, which is in constant flux. Given the volatility of XRP, its live price can change by a large amount in a very short space of time. The market cap of XRP is equal to the price of XRP times the number of XRP coins in circulation and therefore changes with its price.

Ripple Price FAQ

How is the price of XRP calculated?

XRP’s price at any given time is decided by the balance of supply and demand on exchanges. When more people are buying XRP than selling it, the price goes up, and when more are selling than buying, the price goes down.

Why is the price of XRP different on each cryptocurrency exchange?

XRP’s price is based purely on trading as there is no standard global XRP price, so no one knows what it is “supposed” to cost. The trading volume and liquidity is different for each exchange and those differences can affect the price.

Who’s behind XRP?

XRP has its origins in 2004, when web developer Ryan Fugger first idealized a payment platform called OpenCoin. In 2012, the project was taken over by Jed McCaleb and Chris Larson – and the company was rebranded to Ripple the following year. 

Although XRP is open-source, decentralized, and operates independently of Ripple, news stories and legal actions affecting Ripple tend to impact XRP price as well.

What will XRP be worth in the future?

It’s impossible to make price predictions with any kind of real accuracy as any number of factors could affect it. Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse predicted that Ripple could be the Amazon of the crypto industry by 2025, and if he’s right this would mean absolutely monumental XRP growth. 

However, he was also cautious on XRP price, suggesting investors in XRP should think in terms of months and years rather than days and weeks.

Conclusion

XRP’s journey has thus far been a bit of a bumpy one. It spent a lot of time trading below $0.01, but momentum from Bitcoin’s 2013 and 2017 bull runs sent XRP price skywards. It was somewhat left behind for Bitcoin’s 2020 bull run though, likely as a result of the uncertainty surrounding the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple.

Other factors, including social pressure from retail investors, have also proved capable of moving XRP markets. In the future, institutional adoption of XRP as a means of making global payments could influence its value in a major way.

XRP price today is governed by the balance of supply and demand on cryptocurrency exchanges and remains highly volatile.

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