When it comes to the cryptocurrency market, people usually focus only on three major digital coins: Bitcoin, Ripple XRP, and Ethereum. All three of these currencies are massively down this year thanks to the bursting of the crypto bubble. Bitcoin has recorded year to date (YTD) decline of 75% while the Ethereum is down by 88% YTD. While In the comparison of Ripple with Ethereum, XRP has lost 50% of its value, making it the strongest among the three in the year 2018.
Reasons behind the Decline
A comprehensive analysis of the Crypto market in 2018 reveals two important facts about its decline. First, the tightening regulatory framework around the digital currency set the alarm bell ringing among the investors. This resulted in massive sell-off across the market with most of the investors bailing out their position amidst fear of further loss. The Bitcoin loyalists were pinning their hopes that the US Securities and Exchange Commission would allow bitcoin exchange credit fund, but that didn’t happen with the regulator delaying its decision to the next year. Second, the crypto market is worried about the fact that the industry doesn’t have real projects to stimulate digital currency adoption and its integration across the industries. In terms of user adoption, Ethereum emerges as the strongest coin among the three and it also has the highest frequency of use. However, the issue of poor scaling continues to haunt the future prospects of Ethereum.
Ripple’s XRP
There is no such issue for the Ripple which undoubtedly has the most solid project support among its peer group. Time and again, Ripple has attracted the most powerful and talented names to its conferences, signifying its reach and influence among the bigwigs. The technology team at Ripple has also worked hard to convince banks to adopt its transaction protocol though still much need to be done before its technology get fully integrated into the banking sector. The future prospects of the Ripple seem to be brightest among the three coins. Ripple has received least devaluation this year compared to Bitcoin and Ethereum but more importantly, the efforts of Ripple team in creating partnerships across the industry segments really bodes well for its future. If tomorrow, crypto gets a nod from the regulators then it will be far easier for the institutions to integrate existing Technology like Ripple in their systems than to develop something new from the scratch.
Ripple’s client List and future challenges
The big names in the client list of Ripple include GMT from Israel, Akbank from Turkey, American Express, MoneyGram, Earthport, and CIBC. That said, US security and Exchange Commission is yet to deliver its verdict on whether to treat crypto as securities or not. The biggest stumbling block in this regard is the decentralized nature of crypto including Ripple.
As we head into 2019, Ripple needs to work specifically on two major issues: strengthen the integration of its technology and securing more leading clients from across the industries. As per Ripple XRP news, XRP has recently named among the list of 30 assets that Coinbase has announced for its trading platform and Ripple team needs to ensure that in the future if any such new industry initiative is proposed, the XRP again takes a top spot on the list. XRP has the potential to become a dominant coin in 2019; given the Ripple, team fulfills the expectations mentioned above.