RIPPLE prices are on the mend again after a drastic plunge on Monday shocked investor confidence in the XRP token. But does this mean you should invest in Ripple?
XRP token is trading above £1.46 ($2) again, hitting a price tag of £1.50 ($2.05 ) at 3.58pm GMT on Friday January 12.
The token bounced back around 28 percent on Thursday afternoon to £1.64 ($2.25) after South Korean regulators threatening to ban cryptocurrency trading crippled the markets.
Ripple’s rising price now comes with the announcement that US-based transfer giant MoneyGram will adopt Ripple’s xRapid transfer protocol.
Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple CEO, said the move will make sending money to friends and family a quicker and cheaper task, but skeptics have questioned the need to buy XRP to do this.
Should you invest in Ripple?
Earlier this week analysts revealed Ripple stands a good chance of overtaking bitcoin’s £168billion ($230billion) market capitalisation if it manages to hit a price tag £5.16 ($7).
But Mike Orcutt of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Review has now argued that investing in Ripple as the new bitcoin, could be a misguided hope.
Mr Orcutt said: “But XRP was never meant to be another bitcoin. Ripple’s big bet is that XRP will become a ‘bridge currency’ that many financial institutions use to settle cross-border payments faster and more cheaply than they do now using global payment networks, which can be slow and involve multiple middlemen.
“Bitcoin could be used to do this too, but Ripple can settle 1,000 transactions per second, compared with Bitcoin’s seven, and its transaction fees are much lower.
“The idea is that this will in turn will make the currency more valuable.”
Unlike bitcoin, Ripple’s foremost purpose is to replace money transfer systems such as SWIFT, with a faster and more reliable network.
If you send US Dollars to China on Ripple’s network, the USD would convert to XRP and then to Chinese Yuan (CNY) upon arrival.
Mr Galringhouse is confident this will revolutionise money transfers, but it offers a limited scope of use for potential investors.
But because XRP only works with bank institutions and acts as a ‘middleman’ for transfers, it offers a limited scope of use for potential investors.
Every time Ripple announces a partnership, we see an increase in value
Joe DiPasquale, CEO of BitBull Capital
However with Ripple’s fast paced expansion through 2017 – around 38,000 percent – the temptation to invest is strong.
Cryptocurrency inventor Oscar Isaacs is confident Ripple is now “gaining momentum” on its way to strike £2.92 ($4) per token.
He said: "Ripple has over the past month been gaining mainstream attention from the press and investors a like, not to mention numerous Reddit sub threads, coin aggregation sites and Telegram groups, which has contributed to the strong price action."
