Valerie MedlevaOver the past few years, Ripple has made headlines by standing at the forefront of establishing meaningful relationships with traditional financial institutions across the world. Unlike many of its counterparts, the project remains focused on the cross-border transactions, following its main goal of revolutionising international payments with its innovative solutions.
Ripple’s native coin XRP is now the third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, treading on heels of the industry’s veterans – Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).
However, after the infamous crypto-winter hit the industry in 2018, the altcoin’s price has struggled to get even close to its record highs ever again. In addition, many still argue on the nature of this crypto, causing a lot of controversy around the project and doubts about its future.
Now that XRP is striving to finally trade above $0.30, investors from the community are making their bets on whether or not the coin will be able to make it past $1 by the end of this year.
Do you want to invest in Ripple currency but not sure how it is set to perform in the foreseeable future? We have you covered. In this article, we recap the project’s fundamentals, review its recent price fluctuations and check out what the latest XRP price predictions for 2020 and beyond look like.
Read our new forecast: Ripple price prediction 2021 and beyond: all the way up to $30?
What is Ripple all about?
Ripple traces its roots back to 2004 when Ryan Fugger sketched the first prototype of a decentralised payment system called RipplePay. One year later, the system was launched with a goal of offering reliable payment solutions within a global network.
In 2012, it was rebranded as OpenCoin. Ever since, the project’s aim has been to develop a protocol to provide innovative and useful payment solutions for banks and major financial institutions. In 2015, the company returned to its present name – Ripple.
The system is fuelled by the XRP cryptocurrency. The coin was designed to smooth financial transactions by making them faster and cheaper.
What makes Ripple attractive to investors?
Unlike other cryptos, the project is not trying to oppose the current financial system with banks and governments. In fact, Ripple is doing its best to become integrated into it.
With ambitions so high, the project was meant to become a success.
Ripple confirmed it has signed over 300 banking and financial customer partnerships. The list includes some world-renowned names, such as Euro Exim Bank, Barclays, HSBC, Accenture, MoneyGram, JNFX, FTCS, BFC Bahrain, ConnectPay, Ahli Bank of Kuwait, Transpaygo, GMT and WorldCom Finance.
A year ago, the company’s CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, said: “We’re now signing two – sometimes three – new customers per week. We also saw a 350 per cent increase last year in customers sending live payments, and we’re beginning to see more customers flip the switch and leverage XRP for on-demand liquidity.”
In October 2019, Bank of America confirmed a collaboration with Ripple’s XRP Ledger to test the distributed ledger technology on cross-border payments. However, it was also stated that the institution does not plan to start using XRP yet.
Only a week ago, another major financial institution partnered with Ripple. The National Bank of Egypt has signed a cooperation agreement to establish new channels for inward remittances.
The latest news proves two points. First – there is high interest from the institutional side. Second – Ripple’s core team can easily boast of great strategic competence.
The project’s widespread acknowledgement is continuously boosting investors’ confidence in its bright future.
XRP performance through the years: shooting crypto star?
Should I invest in Ripple? Many people asked themselves this question back in 2018 after seeing the coin skyrocket from $0.006 to over $3.8 in less than a year.
The coin started on the market in 2012 with an approximate price of $0.005. Its value remained rather flat until 2017, when the entire crypto industry went through a mind-boggling boom.
The first price peak happened in May 2017. Back then, XRP soared to $0.36 per coin, followed by the Ripple’s office opening in Mumbai. The prices settled down around the $0.20 range for the next six months.
The second peak occurred in January 2018. On January 4, XRP hit its all-time high of $3.84. However, going forward, the price started falling gradually, and by September, the rate fell to $0.29. Short-lived upside momentum then boosted the coin’s value up to $0.56. XRP closed 2018 at $0.35.
In 2019, the coin did not have any significant breakthroughs, holding steady in the range of $0.2 – $0.5. After bottoming at $0.17 in December, the price of the third-largest cryptocurrency surged up to $0.33 in eight weeks’ time, representing a gain of nearly 100 per cent.
Now that XRP trades at around $0.30, analysts have split in two. Some are sure that more upside is likely for the prominent altcoin, while others say it has the potential to plummet dramatically once again.
If you analyse the dynamics of the XRP rate, it is easy to notice that Ripple news plays a crucial role in the coin’s valuation. Every time the business announced a new partnership with a large bank or payment service, it would always trigger short-term price hikes in XRP.
But will the project be able to push its service further? Let us find out what the latest Ripple (XRP) prediction looks like.
What the future holds: Ripple price prediction for years ahead
A few finance giants like JPMorgan are now working on introducing their own digital assets, some of which are likely to offer service that is very similar to Ripple. If this is actually to happen, the adoption rate of XRP will fall significantly, leading to the coin’s eventual devaluation.
This remains one of the biggest issues that make many concerned about the project’s future. The only way for Ripple to avoid this bearish scenario is to start promoting its currency not only as payment means but also as an investment tool.
Looking ahead, Brad Garlinghouse told Bloomberg: “I don’t think about the price of XRP in the short-term. I think if we can enable XRP to be the most efficient in terms of the speed of a transaction and the cost of a transaction, more and more people will use it.”
While Garlinghouse’s determination to be in it for the long haul may reassure some investors, do all analysts remain as optimistic? Is Ripple worth investing in 2020?
Crypto Rand, a prominent cryptocurrency analyst and industry personality that has over 200,000 followers on Twitter, said that if XRP breaks the current price range it is trading in – $0.30 to $0.31 – the prices are likely to “moonshot.” His chart suggested that if the price makes a few daily closes above $0.31, it will be set for at least a 50 per cent surge towards the resistance in the $0.47.
Josh Olszewicz, an analyst at cryptocurrency data provider Brave New Coin, supported this prediction. He commented that if XRP manages to break above $0.30, its historical resistance level, the cryptocurrency could rally 66 per cent to $0.50 in the months following this event.
Meanwhile, Peter Brandt, a commodity trading veteran, said that XRP price has a chance of sinking to just $0.2071 in the short-term perspective.
According to the online forecasting service, WalletInvestor.com, XRP is a “bad, high-risk 1-year investment” option. In one year, the price of the coin is expected to fall to $0.02 by December 2020. In five years, they predict this cryptocurrency to trade at $0.029 in February 2025.
TradingBeasts.com prognoses the XRP price to reach $0.361 by the beginning of March. For the long-term, the coin is not expected to fluctuate a lot, with this year’s average standing at $0.34. By December 2025, the service estimates the rate to grow a little and trade at $0.52.
Based on the opinion of another popular forecasting website Longforecast.com, the XRP price prediction for December 2020 is $0.17. In 2022, they prognose a steep decline, with the rate falling as low as 0.09 by the end of the year.
A much more optimistic Ripple price prediction is offered by Cryptoground.com. They forecasted XRP to trade at $0.348 in one year, gaining almost 28 per cent. The growth is expected to continue, with the coin reaching $1.9422 in five years.
Looking ahead, DigitalCoinPrice.com states in its Ripple prediction that XRP will have moderate price growth. The positive trend is expected to prevail, with the coin trading at $0.54 by the end of 2020. Looking ahead, they predict this cryptocurrency to hit $1.23 by 2025.
Lastly, in the Ripple (XRP) price prediction provided by CoinSwitch, the price of XRP is expected to gradually increase, eventually reaching a $1.10 mark in the middle of the year. They believe that if Ripple continues to develop at a rapid pace and has independent trading platforms and investment routes like Bitcoin and Ethereum, the coin will be able to touch the $2 mark by 2021.
So, is Ripple a good investment?
Clearly, like with any other asset, there is no definite answer to this question. The challenge with choosing what cryptocurrency to invest in is that the market is very dynamic. Its volatility makes it rather hard to predict what the price of a digital coin could be in a few hours; and even harder to give long-term forecasts.
While Ripple does grow at a rapid pace and attracts a lot of attention from major financial institutions, many still argue whether or not the project will be able to thrive in the growing competition.
When considering Ripple investing, always make sure to take into account the latest technical analysis, expert opinion and market trends. It is always crucial to arm yourself with as much knowledge as possible in order to build a winning trading strategy.
