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Ripple appeared at the horizon in 2012 with the intention of transforming the financial system with its decentralized payment solution. The Ripple token XRP acts as a lingua franca of cross-border transactions, making them faster and cheaper.

The sudden increase in Ripple has caused a stir in the payments industry and poses a serious threat to SWIFT, a 45-year-old inter-bank message system that is responsible for almost half of international payments since 2018.

What's happening to XRP?

As of October 11, the XRP price has plummeted by nearly 13% in a single day, currently above $ 0.40. While this decline is quite predictable due to the recent beating of Bitcoin (the king of the crypt has recently dropped by five percent after a long period of unprecedented stability), XRP certainly had a wild ride during the period. ;last month. The currency had a massive rally on September 23, reaching its all-time high of $ 0.69.

The ex-Waller Mike Novogratz, when asked to share his opinion on the recent wave of Ripple, says he did not understand it.

"When something skips 3 times, I do not understand. You know, it's a small squeeze, up to a certain point, "- Mike Novogratz.

In just three days, after briefly deterring Ethereum on CoinMarketCap, XRP lost 30% of its price, which subsequently canceled $ 9 billion from its market capitalization. The current market capitalization of XRP is $ 16.3 billion.

Reproduction of xRapid

Ripple & # 39; s xCurrent has already been adopted by over 120 banking institutions worldwide. In the beginning of September, the US banking giant PNC also got on board, beginning to accept cross-border transactions with xCurrent. So, Ripple expects that his new product, xRapid, will replicate the success of its predecessor.

xRapid would allow banks to process international payments almost instantly by linking several legal currencies with XRP. After the initial currency is converted into XRP token, this sum of money will be converted back into the national currency of those receiving the payment.

Brad Garlinghouse from Ripple is confident that "dozens" of banks will already use their xRapid product by the end of 2019.

Why has xRapid not triggered another bullish momentum?

Although xRapid officially went live on October 1, the XRP price has declined anyway. Why did it happen? The fact is that there is still strong speculative pressure around Ripple, and once again the customers are on board, it is possible that xRapid will actually create more demand for XRP and increase the price of the token. Many large financial institutions still have to adopt xRapid.

If you happen to come across Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations", you already know that the market is driven by supply and demand. However, another take-away from the legendary Scottish economist's book is that markets also tend to be irrational. FUD causes momentary decisions that have a huge impact on the nascent cryptocurrency market.

Bill Clinton was a mistake

On July 31, Ripple officially announced that the former US president Bill Clinton would be the keynote speaker during the aforementioned Swell conference. According to Observer, Ripple has paid out almost $ 500,000 to get such a high-profile speaker.

During his presidency, Clinton pushed the growth of the Internet in the 90s during the dot-com bubble. However, the cryptocurrency community was not clearly impressed by its long-awaited speech. He did not seem to recognize that Ripple could become the future of the financial sector. This was certainly daunting for investors.

$ 589 by the end of 2018?

How high can Ripple go? While this prediction might seem extravagant even for the permabullate, a cryptic theory states that Ripple could reach $ 589 as early as 2018. The story goes back to a now deceased Reddit account Bearableguy123 which would publish a cryptic image that supposedly would indicate future developments to Ripple on his subreddit. However, many users suggest that the boy was simply a troll who was looking for attention, but there are also suggestions that he was indeed a member of Ripple.

But how ridiculous is this price forecast of Ripple? Let's do the math. To achieve this brand, XRP should double its value every day. There are 82 days left in 2018, which essentially means that XRP is expected to earn $ 588.60 more within the year. Subsequently, its price should add $ 7.17 every single day.

So, where will XRP be arranged by the end of 2018?

Now we remove our foil hats and forget these astronomical figures, focusing on more realistic predictions. Garlinghouse, while expanding the difference between Ripple and XRP in an interview with CNBC, states that it would not even attempt to predict how high Ripple would be. Therefore, let's hear what the experts have to say.

Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group, recently expressed his opinion on how much Ripple could get. He believes that XRP could touch $ 1 by the end of this year. In addition, he says that Ripple could almost double its price in 2019. He also thinks the world will shift from traditional money in the near future, and Ripple will lead this process.

"XRP is proving to be one of the most useful cryptocurrencies for businesses, "- deVere CEO of the Nigel Green group.

Forbes recently brought together many industry experts to discuss whether XRP could touch $ 1 by the end of this year. Some analysts said they were on the same page with Green. Marouane Garcon, Amulet's managing director, is certain that $ 1 is also a "modest" price point. On the other hand, an eToro Mati Greenspan analyst will not be quick to predict bullish forecasts, stating that it is a "distinct possibility".

Can the XRP price go down to zero?

According to a bomb report presented by Satis Group, a research company based in San Francisco, the value of XRP could be reduced to $ 0.004 in ten years while Bitcoin could reach $ 90,000. The centralized nature of Ripple will affect the price of the currency, the study says.

A well-known technical trader John Bollinger also shared his bullish bullish forecast for 2018 in August:

$ XRPUSD it's down 90% … time to start looking for signs of capitulation.

– John Bollinger (@bbands) 10 August 2018

Although we can not completely ignore these predictions, there are some factors that indicate the fact that Ripple is here to stay (along with its native token):

1. Ripple is extremely fast. The Bitcoin network, which can process only seven transactions per second (TPS), pales compared to Ripple with its huge 1,500 TPS. This technology could be in the same position as VISA.

2. Banks are hugging him. xRapid, after the success of xCurrent, is already gaining ground with banking institutions. The XRP is seen as a much safer bet than other cryptocurrencies.

3. Investors must still discover XRP. While Bitcoin and Ethereum have been on everyone's lips since the December boom, Ripple's familiarity is rather low outside the cryptic crowd. Once traditional institutions have started to adopt their technology at the forefront, XRP will get more followers, which will increase its price later.

The bottom line

The cryptocurrency sector is still immature and it appears that the market is in a dead end (Ripple's only ripple is 85 percent lower than the January ATH). However, Ripple, with its robust technology and a warm welcome from banking institutions, will not soon die in spite of its abandonment price. The price of XRP in 2018 will largely depend on the share of SWIFT's market share that will be captured.