Ripple market capitalization: 27.362 billion US dollars
Ripple exchange rate: 0.6999 US dollars[status 20 March 2018]
The crypto currency Ripple XRP experienced a positive price development throughout the last year. The first relevant price gains were made in the second quarter of 2017, and in the second week of December the Ripple price then shot up very rapidly. With an exchange rate of USD 3.38, the Ripple reached its all-time high on January 7, 2018, but subsequently suffered continuous losses.
Since January 1, 2018, it has lost 69 percent of its value.
With regard to the price losses of the Ripple in the first quarter of 2018, various factors are having an impact alongside the general cooling of the crypto market. At the beginning of January, Ripple Labs announced that it would no longer include the exchange rates on the Korean crypto exchanges in its calculations. However, the actually only arithmetical correction led to irritation among many investors, who then turned their backs on the Ripple.
On January 16, regulatory changes in Japan and South Korea then led to a steeper drop in share prices, from which the ripple recovered quickly at first. Nevertheless, he was not spared from the downward trend on the crypto market in the following weeks. After a recovery phase in the first two weeks of February, share prices began to fall again. Nevertheless, in the first quarter of 2018 the Ripple clearly outperformed the previous year's share price.
Market observers assume that the Ripple XRP will continue to develop positively in principle. This is due to the fact that Ripple Labs has distinguished itself as a business partner of established financial service providers since it was founded. They now maintain a large number of business partnerships with banks and other companies. In December 2017, the first futures contracts for bitcoin and ripple were admitted to the US stock exchanges. It is very likely that further Ripple financial products will follow in the course of the year, which could also prove to be price drivers for the crypto currency Ripple XRP.