Ripple prices have been sitting in a tinderbox ever since Ripple’s conference in October, waiting for a spark to set it aflame. That spark (in this metaphor) arrived last week in the form of a partnership.
A partnership with whom, you ask?
Oh, just American Express Company (NYSE: AXP). It’s not a big deal, except…no wait…it is a big deal! American Express is an important financial firm in the world’s most important financial market. Securing its partnership—not for a “test” or “experiment,” but a real partnership—is a huge accomplishment for a startup. You can read more about the nature of that deal here.
Investors absolutely loved the deal. They sent XRP prices surging 24% in the hour after the deal was announced. And though markets corrected some of those gains, the trendline for XRP still points upwards. If you don’t believe me, check out the Ripple price chart:
Daily Ripple (XRP) Chart ripple price chart 20 nov Ripple Prices
On Monday morning, the Ripple to USD exchange rate advanced 3.54% from 24 hours earlier, putting it at $0.239108. The Ripple to Bitcoin rate, meanwhile, inched lower to 0.00002968 BTC.
Trading Volumes
Between November 18 and 19, trading volumes increased 34.3% to $193.81 million. This rise in XRP trading activity continued through the night, rising to $207.2 million at the time of writing.
That said, there is significant room to the upside. Investors were swapping more than $1.02 billion of XRP tokens last week. If we see a return to those levels, Ripple prices will likely skyrocket as investors outbid one another.
Trading Markets
Bithumb, a South Korean exchange, was Ripple’s biggest trading venue. It accounted for 50.23% of all XRP that changed hands, meaning that South Korean traders are continuing to exert enormous influence over the currency’s direction. This may sound unequivocally good for the average XRP investor, but it’s really a double-edged sword.
On one hand, it gives XRP a heavy swing to the upside whenever those traders believe XRP is poised for a rally. However, it also exposes XRP to enormous risk. There is nothing to stop South Korean traders from starting a rally, exiting their positions after gaining sufficient profits, and then repeating the maneuver time and again.
Analyst Take:
We continue to believe that Ripple is among the most promising cryptocurrencies on the market. As such, we maintain our $1.00 Ripple price prediction by the end of 2017.