XRP price prediction is making rounds as the price of cryptocurrency soared more than 30% in the last few days. The spike is primarily because US President Donald Trump on social media announced that his January executive order on digital assets would create a stockpile of currencies, including Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, SOL, and ADA. The names had not previously been announced.
Trump wrote that his order “directed the Presidential Working Group to move forward on a Crypto Strategic Reserve that includes XRP, SOL, and ADA. I will ensure the U.S. is the Crypto Capital of the World.” In another post, he added, “And, obviously, BTC and ETH, as other valuable Cryptocurrencies, will be at the heart of the Reserve.”
After his post, the World’s most valuable cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, ran more than 9%, topping $94,000—other mentioned currencies, e.g, ADA, SOL, and Ether, are up in the range of 10 to 24%.
About XRP
A native token of XRP Ledger, it is an open-source blockchain cryptocurrency. The cryptocurrency and blockchain are designed to enhance global financial transfers and the exchange of several currencies. Investors also use it to store value and profit from price fluctuations. Blockchain services company Ripple uses XRP and the XRP Ledger as payment platforms to facilitate transactions between financial institutions, businesses, and organizations.
It was created in 2012 specifically for payments. XRP can settle transactions on the ledger in 3-5 seconds. It was built to be a better Bitcoin—faster, cheaper, and greener than any other digital asset. Makers claim XRP can be sent directly without needing a central intermediary, making it a convenient instrument in bridging two different currencies quickly and efficiently. It is freely exchanged on the open market and used in real-world data for enabling cross-border payments and microtransactions.
| Benefits | XRP | Bitcoin |
|---|---|---|
| Fast | 3-5 seconds to settle | 500 seconds to settle |
| Low-Cost | $0.0002/tx | $0.50/tx |
| Scalable | 1,500 tx per second | 3 tx per second |
| Sustainable | Environmentally sustainable (negligible energy consumption) | 0.3% of global energy consumption |
How Is XRP Used in Trading?
XRP is traded on more than 100 markets and exchanges worldwide. XRP’s low transaction fees, reliability, and high speed enable traders to use the digital asset as high-speed, cost-efficient, and reliable collateral across trading venues. This enables traders to seize arbitrage opportunities, servicing margin calls and managing general trading inventory in real time.
Because of the properties inherent to XRP and the ecosystem around it, traders worldwide can shift collateral, bridge currencies, and switch from one crypto into another nearly instantly, across any exchange on the planet.
Can XRP still be mined, and What is its connection with Ripple?
No, XRP can not be mined now. All XRP is already in existence today; no more than the original 100 billion can be created. The XRPL founders gifted 80 billion XRP, the platform’s native currency, to Ripple. This was done to provide predictability to the XRP supply, Ripple has locked 55 billion XRP (55% of the total possible supply) into a series of escrows using the XRP Ledger itself. The XRPL’s transaction processing rules, enforced by the consensus protocol, control the release of the XRP.
- First, 80 billion XRP tokens were allocated to Ripple (the company). To ensure a stable supply of XRP, 55 billion XRP were locked in an escrow account.
- Then, Ripple co-founders and the core team received the remaining 20 billion XRP.
- The XRP in escrow was scheduled to be released at a rate of 1 billion per month, with the original release schedule targeting 55 months.
XRP is an independent digital asset created using Ripple’s digital asset infrastructure. Ripple, as a technology company, makes it easier to build a high-performance, global payments business.
What is United State’s strategic reserve?
A strategic reserve is a stock of a systemically important input, which can be released to manage serious supply disruptions. The most well-known example is the strategic petroleum reserve (SPR), which was created as a response to the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo, as well as to meet the reserve obligations of the international energy program. Since the 1970s, the SPR has been tapped more than two dozen times for a range of reasons: from providing critical petroleum supply after natural disasters to countering price fluctuations rising from geopolitical reasons.
What purpose would a strategic Cryptocurrency reserve serve? President Trump is an advocate of cryptos as a national and economic security asset like oil or gold. However, in economic security terms, cryptos do not serve the same function in the US economy as petroleum. Oil is one of the basic inputs that powers our economy and daily living, but crypto is not. Holding a Crypto reserve would be the equivalent of the government holding a lot of Snickers in case it needed to intervene to reduce Snickers prices in the future. It is not a crucial commodity or input in our economy.
The prices of the mentioned cryptos zoomed as the US’s Trump administration is seeing them as a strategic asset. Click here for more of our global coverage.
XRP Price
Last, the XRP Price was at $2.92, up 33.3% from the previous close.
The immediate target for XRP is $3, if it sustains above, and big hands (ETF approvals, strategic reserve buying, fund managers adding) push it further to $5. At $5, XRP will have a market cap of approx. $360 bn. Ripple’s growing role in central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and XRP being the most preferred digital product, experts see high potential in it.
Many crypto pundits predict the XRP price will rise as high as $100; whether it will reach that, only time will tell. XRP is already the third most valuable cryptocurrency behind Bitcoin and Ethereum. The biggest support to XRP price will come from the XRP ETF. Former Goldman Sachs analyst Dom Kwok wrote earlier this year, “High chance that XRP flips ETH very soon.” As of Feb. 21, XRP has a market value of $175 billion, and Ethereum has a market value of $355 billion. That means Kwok’s prediction implies that XRP will soar more than 120% from its current price of $2.92.
At $5, XRP will most probably be 2nd most valued cryptocurrency in the world. We advise investors to not pay heed to speculations of $50 or $100 target for XRP as at $10 it will have a market cap of more than $1 trillion which in itself is a ambitious figure. Investors should diversify their portfolio well in multiple assets and should remain realistic before making any investment.
