- XRP is considered as the bridge currency, that helps to move funds faster and cheaper.
- Ripple attracted a lot of institutional investors lately.
- Fundamental factors and technical analysis predict XRP price growth in the long-term.
Various companies fell during the crypto winter and back in 2019. Meanwhile, Ripple, the company behind the world’s third cryptocurrency XRP, accelerated and showed its strongest growth in the year to date.
The XRP price prediction article will review both historic price movements of XRP as well as the current situation and future prognosis. The company that gained a lot of attention from global institutional investors is expected to enter into one of the most important moments in its existence. Since the altcoin market has positive correlations with the Bitcoin, the fact of the Bitcoin halving might also work as a catalyst for the future price of XRP.
What is Ripple?
First and foremost it is important to know that Ripple and XRP are not the same. Although lots of crypto users tend to merge them and talk about Ripple as cryptocurrency, this is not entirely true.
Ripple is a California-based technology company that creates and develops the Ripple payment protocol. That protocol allows banks, payment providers, cryptocurrency exchanges, or businesses to transfer money worldwide using blockchain technology.
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2004 can be considered as the debut date of Ripple, as Canadian web and decentralized systems developer Ryan Fugger created the first prototype of Ripple Pay. The financial technology company of the time aimed to create a decentralized peer-to-peer payment network.
However, the official founding date usually is 2012, when Chris Larsen and Jed McCaleb acquired the company and renamed it to Opencoin. The company since concentrated on developing the Ripple protocol, seeking to enable the near-instant, direct transfer of payments between two parties in any currency. The protocol aimed to improve the speed of transactions and reduce delays within traditional payment systems. A few years later the company returned to its original name Ripple.
Ripple relies on a common shared XRP Ledger. The distributed consensus ledger, or distributed database storing information about all Ripple accounts, is used since 2013 to support financial institutions like crypto exchanges for fast cross-border payment. It is known that XRP Ledger can handle 1.500 transactions per second. XRP currency is the native asset of the XRP Ledger.
The company recently became an object of interest to solid institutional investors. Partnerships with leading US-Mexico remittance service providers and the National Bank of Egypt allows Ripple to become one of the prominent players in the cross-border payment industry. Furthermore, the major cryptocurrency custodian Anchorage, the member of Facebook Libra and Celo alliances, added XRP as an asset for its corporate investors.
What is XRP?
XRP is a digital asset, or in other words a cryptocurrency, that lives on a public ledger and can be transferred using digitally signed transactions. The XRP aims to increase the speed and reduce the cost of transferring funds across various companies and borders. It is also used as transitional currency for institutions that exchange value between multiple fiat currencies.
Although a native token of XRP Ledger, the XRP is an independent asset and may exist without Ripple. The only control it has over it is the one by the users of XRP or XRP Ledger. Currently, there is a maximum supply of 100 billion XRP.
The asset is ranked fourth by market capitalization, at the time of publishing. According to CoinMarketCap, XRP market capitalization is $8.9 billion and the circulating supply floats around 44.1 billion at the time of publishing.
What is XRP used for?
The main benefits that XRP provides for its users are low fees and fast cross-border transactions. Since there are lots of currencies that cannot be directly exchanged, the XRP is used as a bridge (or intermediary currency) much cheaper than the standard fiat currencies like the US dollar.
Furthermore, the coin ensures fast international transactions. Since the average XRP transaction takes 4 seconds, there can be around 1.500 XRP transactions every second. The rate is way faster compared to 8 transactions per second on the Bitcoin blockchain.
For a long time, the XRP coin was considered as the bridge currency, the one that helps to move funds faster and cheaper. However, the coin can be an asset to the investment itself. And since Ripple attracted a lot of institutional investors lately, the XRP price prediction might largely depend on the fundamentals surrounding the ecosystem of Ripple.
Historic moves of XRP price
For those who want to invest in XRP, it would be useful to have a broader view of how the XRP price acted since its start in 2012. The coin’s price floated around $0.005 for nearly 5 years when 2017 brought the incredible “to the moon” heights.
Together with the whole crypto industry, the XRP price increased nearly seven times and skyrocketed to $0.36 within the May 2017.
The price then settled down at around $0.20 per coin and remained at the same level until the next massive peak. At the beginning of December 2017, the XRP started the impressive skyrocketing when it shot from $0.24 to the all-time-high of $3.84 in the first days of January 2018.
Since then the third-ranked crypto asset by market capitalization started to fall gradually. Within four months, XRP dropped nearly 8 times in its value reaching the price of $0.49 in April 2018.
After the short rebounce of $0.81, the XRP price stabilized at around $0.30 since September, when it once again climbed more significantly to $0.57. However, since then there were no breakthroughs and the XRP price remained at a more steady price range between $0.20 and $0.50.
XRP price forecast for 2021 and 2025
There are several factors like Bitcoin halving, institutional interest, and the rise of Central Bank Digital Coins (CBDC), that can affect XRP price differently. Let’s have a look at them before jumping to XRP long term forecast.
The factor of Bitcoin halving
Since Bitcoin acts like the leading North start for lots of altcoins, XRP is not an exception. The whole cryptocurrency ecosystem is largely affected by the price moves of Bitcoin.
The Bitcoin halving process is the key event not only for the leading crypto asset but for the whole industry as well. The event that takes place every 4 years and cuts Bitcoin miners’ reward in half, usually brings the spurt of price growth in a long-term perspective. And since the correlation between Bitcoin and altcoins remain positive, the positive price forecasts for Bitcoin might as well result in positive XRP price prediction 2021.
The factor of institutional interest
Furthermore, Ripple has made a lot of important collaborations throughout the previous years. The partnerships with national banks and companies like American Express, MoneyGram, Santander and SBI Remit services fueled the institutional trust in XRP. The company’s global payments network grew to more than 300 customers worldwide last year, with payout capabilities in over 70 countries.
This means that if XRP gets adopted on a massive scale, the token will have the objective of a significant price increase. Crypto exchange aggregator CoinSwitch predicts, that the factor “can undoubtedly make Ripple stand out in a crowd of digital currencies.” Furthermore, the company predicts that:
As per the XRP price trends, the experts believe that it will enter into countless partnerships with financial institutions. By 2021, XRP might touch the $2 mark.
The factor of stablecoins and CBDC
On the other hand, there are other opinions concerning the XRP price prediction. The growing role of stablecoins and the development of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) is a major threat that might decrease the XRP adoption rate across institutional usage.
XRP price prediction for 2021
As popular cryptocurrency exchange aggregator DigitalCoinPrice predicts, XRP should grow up to $0.75 by April 2021 and even reach $0.87 at the beginning of 2022. The website uses statistical methods based on the historical Ripple price data that cover correlations, trading growth, and even the frequency of significant events over time.
This is a positive XRP pierce prediction though, while the more cautious forecasts expect the price to remain volatile and even fall to the lows of $0.51 in September 2021.
In parallel, another XRP price aggregator LongForecast provides with more reserved XRP price forecasts. The website predicts, XRP price should fluctuate between the bottom price of $0.22 and the highs of $0.34, that XRP might reach in March 2021.
Meanwhile, cryptocurrency trader VincePrince brings his insights claiming that XRP will go through a second bull-market confirmation in the beginning of 2021. Following his predictions, XRP should rally and test its all-time high of $3.7 at some point during the year.
XRP price prediction for 2025
With more upcoming institutional partnerships and forming bullish trendlines, the five-year term perspectives look quite bright for XRP. This means XRP price prediction 2025 might look positive.
According to crypto exchange Changelly, the average price of XRP in 2025 will be around $2.32. The Cryptoground analysis, based on the historical XRP price chart, supports the prediction and forecasts nearly 850% price growth up to $1.94 in 5 years.
Meanwhile, DigitalCoinPrice XRP price prediction 2025 expects the asset’s price to climb over the $1 mark and remain there for the whole year. According to the prediction chart, the website expects fluctuations among the highest price of $1.23 in January and the lowest $1.02 in July 2021.
Is XRP a good investment?
There are lots of important factors across the world’s Top 5 cryptocurrency XRP, that might significantly affect the future direction of its price movement. Ripple, the company behind XRP successfully expanded the list of institutional clients and strengthened its positions in the cross-border payment market.
Bitcoin halving and growth can also bring bright perspectives for the potential rally of XRP as the whole altcoin market corresponds with Bitcoin price changes. On the other hand, XRP investors have to evaluate the increasing popularity of stablecoins and the factor of CBDC, that can create competition for XRP in the long-term perspective.
Meanwhile, both key factors and historical price chart analysis indicate a positive trend, the XRP price prediction for 2021 and 2025 might be optimistic for the investors.
