Ripple (XRP) has rallied over 100% in only four days from USD 0.27 on 17 September 2018 to USD 0.57 on 21 September, reaching a high of USD 0.74 on some exchanges. The XRP market cap has increased USD 7 billion to USD 22 billion, not far behind Ethereum’s USD 23 billion market cap. This rally has caught many by surprise, and feels like a small taste of the cryptocurrency rallies during 2017 and the very beginning of 2018. It appears a convergence of positive factors caused this XRP rally.
Ripple is known for being a useful cryptocurrency for international payments and has signed numerous partnerships and done numerous pilot programs with banks around the world. With Ripple, banks can send payments across borders instantly, securely, and at practically zero cost. Any fiat currency, commodity, voucher, or security can be tokenized and sent as a cryptocurrency through the Ripple network, while XRP is the native token of the network.
The Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia signed a partnership with Ripple and this is considered one of the positive factors that has caused this rally. However, there are dozens of banks already using the Ripple platform, so it seems unlikely this is the main reason.
An important development that might be related is Apple’s integration of Ripple into Apple Pay, which might be a big deal since Apple is the biggest company in the world with a stock market cap in excess of USD 1 trillion. However, there doesn’t seem to be any clear way how this would impact the token’s spot market, except through increased brand recognition for Ripple.
It appears the primary cause of the XRP rally is Ripple is launching XRapid in the next month or so, according to a Ripple executive. XRapid can be used to settle international payments and is especially aimed at emerging markets that lack payment infrastructure. XRapid clients, which would be institutions like banks, will be required to use XRP. This is unlike Ripple’s current most popular inter-bank payment platform XCurrent, which doesn’t require XRP. Therefore, the dozens of banks that use Ripple’s technology could soon be buying large amounts of tokens to facilitate international payments.
Past data indicates that when XRP rises this fast it usually continues rallying to prices in excess of USD 1, such as during rallies in January 2018, May 2017, December 2014, and September 2013. However, XRP has a tendency to overshoot its equilibrium and crash hard after rallies like this, and the fact that Ripple Labs and the Ripple Foundation control 60% of all XRP doesn’t help the situation since they can sell their XRP in large amounts when prices hit their peak.
The XRP rally appears to making waves in the altcoin world, with many altcoins rising by double digits like Stellar, EOS, and Cardano, and most other major altcoins rising by at least 5%. Past data suggests that major XRP rallies correlate with major crypto rallies, so this could be a very positive omen for the crypto space.
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