Ripple XRP price in EUR & USD:
The XRP price, i.e. the Ripple price, has fluctuated drastically in recent years. XRP has gained popularity among novice investors. The Ripple vs. SEC lawsuit has been in the headlines for two years. The future of Ripple and the XRP price look interesting and uncertain at the same time
XRP price development in the past years
The XRP price, i.e. the Ripple price, has fluctuated drastically in recent years. The XRP price started from just a few tenths of a cent and eventually moved to over three dollars per coin. XRP has been a great investment for those who got involved in 2017 (or earlier). At the beginning of 2017, the XRP price was only 0,006 dollars! It was a real “penny stock”, which was hardly talked about on social media.
In the spring of 2017, however, things started to happen, as the XRP price increased 10-fold during March-April to 0,06 dollars. The wild rise only continued, as in May 2017 we saw a unit price of around 0,35 dollars This translates to a 60-fold increase in price in just six months! XRP became increasingly popular and social media analysts started talking about its banking connections.
The real explosion happened from the beginning of December 2017 to the beginning of January 2018. At that time, there was a big altcoin boom going on. XRP was undoubtedly one of the drivers of the rally, and it was constantly talked about in the first days of 2018 even on the popular CNBC TV channel.
The graphic below shows the XRP price (Ripple price) in dollars from 2017.
XRP’s all-time high price is an incredible 3,84 dollars on January 4, 2018. If you had acquired XRP exactly one year earlier, your investment would have increased more than 600 times!
In the end, the rapidly inflated bubble burst, and the entire crypto market collapsed drastically during the spring of 2018. The XRP token fell with the others. Bitcoin fell more than 80% from its peak in 2018 and many altcoins fell 95-99%.
Since the summer of 2018, the unit price of XRP has largely remained between 0,25 and 0,60 dollars until 2021. The lowest price was in March 2020, when the panic caused by the coronavirus collapsed all financial markets. The price of XRP rose by hundreds of percent in the 2021 bull market and even crossed 1,5 dollars. However, the bear market that started in November 2021 took XRP down along with the rest of the market.
Basic information about the XRP token
XRP has gained popularity among novice investors. This was especially evident in the December 2017-January 2018 altcoin rally. Probably one of the reasons is the low unit price of the token, which stems from the massive supply.
Bitcoin has a supply of 21 million coins, while 100 billion XRP tokens have been created. This is almost 5000 times more. Hence, it is natural that the price of Bitcoin is in the tens of thousands of dollars, while the XRP price (Ripple price) is hovering below one dollar. Remember that the unit price never tells whether a certain coin is cheap or expensive. Even a coin that costs 0,01 dollars can be an expensive purchase if it has risen quickly from 0,0001 dollars at a fast pace.
Many novice investors are easily confused with Ripple and XRP. Let’s briefly clarify what it is all about. Ripple is first and foremost an American technology company. It develops solutions for the banking world. Ripple has created a network called RippleNet for this purpose. It aims to speed up data transfer between banks and lower costs. This is now known as the Cross-border payment solution.
Ripple has also developed a blockchain called XRP Ledger. The native token of this blockchain is XRP. The XRP Ledger is open-source software and anyone can join its network. If you buy XRP from an exchange and move it into your wallet, you are making transactions in the XRP Ledger.
RippleNet is a separate network, which does not necessarily use XRP at all. Ripple offers many different services to banks, only one of which is related to the XRP token. This is called ODL or Crypto Liquidity. It is a liquidity pool where XRP tokens can be used.
If the Crypto Liquidity solution would become popular, it could lead to institutions holding large amounts of XRP tokens. The Ripple XRP price would benefit positively from such a development. So far, this has not been the case. It is impossible to say for sure what kind of contracts the Ripple company will make in the future.
It should also be understood that Ripple still holds about half of all XRP tokens. It has sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of them to the market in recent years to help the company’s earnings. Ripple can’t dump all XRP tokens on the market just like that, because an escrow agreement prevents it. However, this selling pressure has contributed to keeping the token’s price low.
Learn more about Ripple and the XRP token by reading our beginner’s guide to XRP.
The Ripple vs. SEC lawsuit
The Ripple vs. SEC lawsuit has been in the headlines for two years. The XRP price (Ripple price) has also suffered from this process for a long time. What is it really about? ‘
The process began in December 2020. At that time, the SEC, which oversees the US securities market, sued XRP founder Chris Larsen and CEO Brad Garlinghouse. Below is a screenshot from Youtube of Brad Garlinghouse’s interview with Bloomberg.
The lawsuit is all about the controversial question that has been in headlines for years: should cryptocurrencies be defined as securities?
There is a historical definition in the US for security, but it was already done 100 years ago. Many would argue that it doesn’t make sense to try to apply it to cryptocurrencies. XRP, the internet, or even computers did not exist when the security definitions were set. The world has changed a lot since then.
At the time of writing the article, the Ripple trial has already lasted over two years. It is expected to end sometime in 2023. The XRP camp has had numerous smaller and larger victories, but the fight in court has still not resulted in decisions.
The outcome of this court case will impact the whole market because the United States is currently creating new crypto regulations. The definition of security is an integral part of this process. If XRP is condemned as a security, the SEC will use its victory to attack other cryptocurrencies as well.
The major problem is that the US cryptocurrency exchanges don’t have a license to trade securities. If Ripple loses the lawsuit and is ruled a security, it will be removed from at least the American and possibly many European exchanges as well. The XRP price would suffer from this decision for sure.
Ripple’s future & price of XRP
The future of Ripple and the XRP price look interesting and uncertain at the same time. Can the XRP price break the January 2018 ATH in the near future?
The price of XRP will be heavily impacted by the Ripple vs. SEC lawsuit. It is practically impossible to assess the potential of XRP until the outcome of the lawsuit is known. A loss in the legal house would be a huge setback for XRP, especially in the US.
After China’s Bitcoin mining ban, the USA has become the world’s leading country in the cryptocurrency industry. The adoption of cryptos has also progressed faster compared to Europe. Although the regulation of the United States does not lead directly to the regulation of the EU or Asian countries, it does have effects.
If XRP is defined as a security in the United States, then the risk of the same judgment in the EU also exists. The future of the XRP price looks cloudy until the lawsuit against the SEC is settled. We see XRP as a high-risk investment whose price development is really difficult to assess before that. We will update the article as soon as decisions are made on the matter.
If you are interested in buying XRP, check our beginner’s guide: how to buy XRP.