Some hate Ripple (XRP), some love it.
But there's no denying the Ripple project has been at the center of some great adoption developments as of late. The team's been keeping their heads down, consolidating collaborations, and essentially doing all the right things from a business perspective .
Also noteworthy? Ripple's monstrous upward price surge over the past few days. Particularly over the past few hours, as the cryptocurrency seemingly went parabolic for a wild stretch there.
So what gives? We'll walk you through the contours of the rally.
One week ago …
Ever since this summer, Ripple's price has been more or less stagnant. That happens a lot in the cryptocurrency space; just consider how Ethereum (ETH) was sideways at $300 for what seemed like months.
Flash forward to around one week ago, and XRP was still hovering around the 0.22 cents USD mark:
Zoom! – Image via CoinMarketCap
Then, starting on December 12th, buy volume started to explode. And as buyers tried to FOMO (“fear on missing out”) in, the XRP price began rapidly sliding upwards. It shot up to to .51 cents, up over 100 percent from one week ago:
The price is settling near its acute peak – Image via CoinMarketCap
The origin of the majority of this volume? South Korea. Check out these stats:
- $1.59 billion in XRP/KRW volume at Bithumb over past 24 hours at press time
- $326 million in XRP/KRW volume at coinone over past 24 hours
The next highest non-South Korean exchange on the top acute volume drivers?
- $309 million XRP/BTC volume on Bittrex
To this end, it's not even close. South Koreans are buying up Ripple in droves, which is causing the price to drift higher and higher. Let's touch on that in a second.
Reasons for the Ripple price spike
Touching on the point of South Korea, there's been a great deal of FUD (“fear, uncertainty, doubt”) spreading through the cryptocurrency space in light of rumors spreading that South Korean regulators were about to crackdown on crypto use in the nation.
The opposite's happened, as these same regulators have now given the green light to domestic cryptocurrency exchanges for the compromise of these exchanges needing to follow 6 new rules that are reasonable and aimed around investor security and Know Your Customer (KYC) laws.
This developed undoubtedly assuaged a ton of South Korean crypto investors, and they're probably getting off the sidelines and pouring back into the markets accordingly. Big winners over the past few days like Ripple, Ethereum, and Litecoin are all surely benefiting from this boost.
Beyond that, this bull run is very is seeming very deserved, as the Ripple team has been on their game in recent weeks. Their feats include:
- 37 banks just declared they'll be testing out XRP
- Locked up 55 billion XRP into an escrow for supply predictability
- Gained +$50 million in Series B funding
- India's biggest exchange Zebpay just added Ripple
- Actualized a partnership with American Express
The combined effect of these optimistic developments have investors feeling good about Ripple going forward. If the project can continue to accrue positive milestones like these, then Ripple's in the top 5 cryptocurrencies by market cap for the foreseeable future.
Featured Image via Fotolia
