It has been a rather intriguing day for holders of the XRP asset. After weeks of market volatility, Ripple’s native asset is seemingly on the rebound. Very few people expect such a thing would happen in the near future, to say the least. Then again, the price has been kept fairly low for quite some time now. With a 60% XRP price jump in the past 24 hours, the entire deck has been reshuffled. We may also see Ripple’s asset overtake Bitcoin Cash as the third currency based on market cap.
One never knows what the next day will bring in cryptocurrency, that much is evident. A lot of people still despise Ripple and its native asset to this very day. Considering how the company aims to facilitate banking transactions, that isn’t entirely unexpected. However, one has to acknowledge XRP has a lot of potential if used correctly. Banks aren’t forced to use this asset, but it will make their life a bit easier. As a result, we now have an XRP price which crawled from $0.17 all the way to almost $0.29 overnight. Such large gains aren’t uncommon in the cryptocurrency world, even though no one knows for sure why this move is happening right now.
XRP Price Surge Could be a Pump-and-dump
Based on recent market trends, it’s not difficult to find a potential cause. It appears the XRP price is driven up by the Korean exchanges. Mainly the Bithumb exchange is actively contributing to this volume right now. The company uses a zero-fee structure which makes speculating on cryptocurrency almost effortless. After all, XRP has never seen a trading volume of over $2bn before. Almost half of all trades come from one exchange, which indicates this could be a massive pump-and-dump scheme.
To be more specific, the Bithumb exchange has a bit of a reputation for inflating trading volumes. Over the past week alone, the platform pumped Bitcoin Cash, Monero, and now XRP. Considering how they also have Litecoin, Dash, and Ethereum Classic listed, either of those three coins can be next. None of those markets, even generate a substantial amount of trading volume right now. If things pick up in the hours to come for either of those currencies, people will know what the next pump will be. It is unfortunate the XRP price gains we see right now, may eventually collapse again. The technology is pretty solid and institutions are taking a liking to Ripple.
Then again, the XRP price is still below its all-time high recorded in May of 2017. At that time, one XRP was valued at $0.33. With price gains in the double-digit percentages these days, literally anything can happen given enough time and money. It is doubtful we will see another XRP price all-time high today, though, as these pumps through Bithumb only last for a day in most cases. That window is slowly coming to an end as we speak. An int
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