In watching the market price of XRP nose dive early January of this year, some people were thinking that perhaps they made the wrong choice. For others, that are more informed (via their research methods), it was nothing and continues to be nothing to be worried about. Investing in XRP is a long term investment, and not really suitable for day or swing trading. XRP is unique, I think, in this respect because the company Ripple has a bleeding edge product that is a real industry and technology disrupter.
Several things were responsible for the rapid decline, which include news from China, India, Coinbase, however, in really looking at these statements from these sources, no one ever said “XRP is out” In fact, XRP in India and China are being accepted by the governments because they are not trying to circumvent banks or currencies.
Asia drives a lot of trading volume in crypto’s and this is an important piece to factor into the big picture here. This fits into the stagnation part of my title, explained now.
For most, January brought in a brand new year, with new fresh ideas of what to do this year. However, that’s for the west. As mentioned, at least currently, the serious volume is driven in Asia. When January rolled in, it was still last year for Asia as they tend to think of things as per the Lunar calendar. This is Chinese New Year (AKA Spring Festival). As the west is ramping up for the new year ahead of them, Asia is ramping down, ready for a nice holiday, rest, and reflection over the last year and what the new year will bring for them. This means that for Asia, nothing really big happens until AFTER February (this year, other years it’s January, other years it’s March).
Now enter SBI Holdings, which is a financial services company group based in Tokyo, Japan. Its’ subsidiary SBI Securities is Japans’ largest online securities company with more than 4 million brokerage accounts. In January they launched SBI VC (Virtual Currencies) that will support only one (1) digital asset, XRP. SBI VC is also looking to join xRapid, this news is huge.
In SK, Woori and Shinhan banks are entering into a second round of testing with Ripple (xCurrent) however, in order to transact better and faster with SBI in Japan, it’s highly probably xRapid is on the horizon.
In Saudi Arabia, SAMA has signed an agreement with Ripple for xCurrent (again, the first step for xRapid deployment), and in Canada, Royal Bank of Canada are hiring developers familiar with the Ripple network.
The list, literally, can go on and on. 2017 was the year to say to everyone “Hey, look at us, we’re crypto currencies / digital assets”, 2018 will be the year to say “look at what we can do”, and 2019, or, even possibly, later in 2018, will be the time to say “Wow, look how much money has been made for the people holding our digital assets, and how much time and money people are saving by using them”
So, now the Chinese New Year is over (for most of Asia, China still has another week of holiday to go), the winter Olympics in South Korea (where most trading volume occurs) are almost over, and, the new year (of the Dog) is beginning. I would expect to see March volumes and pricing steadily increase, in fact, just this weekend, we can already see the market picking up. Good times ahead.
Disclaimer: I personally own XRP digital assets and am a long-term investor/holder in the product. I am not a financial advisor and my reports are not intended as any kind of investment or financial advice. They are formed from my own opinions derived from my own research.
Author: Andrew French
