Ripple’s final quarterly report for 2018 suggests XRP sales amounted to over $535 million USD through the course of the year. These numbers are encouraging overall, suggesting a persistent demand for both Ripple’s institutional products and the XRP token as an investment vehicle for the average user. XRP is well known for their marked success in the traditional finance industry – encouraging banks to adopt the Ripple product suite to replace legacy back-end software. However, XRP’s success on the open cryptocurrency market also shows a firm level of confidence in the general community.
The quarterly report also showed a marked decrease in institutional sales between Q3 and Q4 – not necessarily a negative indicator. These direct sales from XRP introduce additional tokens to the market and potentially suppress the price of the token. In addition, the drop in institutional sales correlated with an increase in third-party sales. These third party sales include cryptocurrency exchanges. Further, total sales volume for XRP in Q4 came to $54.8 billion compared against $38 billion from Q3. As such, XRP is in demand, even if Ripple itself has decreased its direct involvement.
A Question of Market Capitalization Validity
Despite these numbers, there is some question in regards to Ripple’s total market cap. Ripple grew to challenge Ethereum’s dominance as the second-place cryptocurrency, and the two have been in pitched combat since. However, a recent report by cryptocurrency analytics firm Messari suggests that Ripple may be significantly overstating their market capitalization.
The report states that many of the ‘available’ XRP tokens have considerable restrictions placed on them – when, where and in what quantity they can be sold. If this is true, it removes a sizeable chunk of the overall XRP supply from the market. This would drastically drop the market cap by as much as $6 billion and move XRP solidly to the third place slot.
Ripple Projects and News
Outside of total value, Ripple continues to develop new partnerships and encourage products built with Ripple technology. Although generally focused on finance, Ripple is not averse to other industry inclusion. CEO Brad Garlinghouse noted in a recent panel that several games are looking to include XRP tokens for in-world economics. Blockchain gaming is a much-anticipated but often lackluster sector of the cryptocurrency industry as a whole. Quality games that use the XRP token could cause a major stir.
Despite strong competition in the area of remittances, Ripple’s success is driving renewed focus on the area. Many of the new partnerships announced over the past quarter are from businesses that focus on global remittances – something that RippleNet could revolutionize. The high cost of international transfers is a sticking point for many ex-pats sending money home. Rapid, low-fee transactions could completely change this dynamic.
Article By: Adam Stone
