While most of the crypto markets have experienced a massive price rally, with Bitcoin only lagging slightly behind following its weekend leap, XRP has been one of the highest gainers on the day.
After struggling to find positive price movement throughout the start of the year, following last year’s plummet from an all time high of $3.80, the price of XRP has made a bullish turnaround. Earlier in the year, the coin was added to popular U.S-based exchange Coinbase after being tied to the organization for close to a year. The subsequent price movement was lackluster, leaving investors to question whether XRP was destined for an even lower price valuation.
In February, J.P. Morgan Chase dropped a bombshell announcement concerning the development of the JPMCoin. Despite years of negative comments towards Bitcoin by CEO Jamie Dimon, J.P. Morgan became one of the first major financial institutions to make a foray into cryptocurrency. Pundits immediately began connecting the development as a loss for XRP, considering the coin’s position as a bank-to-bank and remittance currency solution.
However, the price of XRP has managed to rally with the majority of the crypto markets. As of writing, the coin is up 12 percent on the day, trading at $0.45 which marks a relative high in price over the last six months, since November 2018.
A piece published on Forbes, TradeBlock director of digital currency research John Todaro said that Bitcoin’s rally has largely been suppressing the price of altcoins like XRP, at least in the near-term,
“You had bitcoin prices rallying recently while alt-coins had seen only modest gains in comparison. Bitcoin dominance (the measure of bitcoin’s market cap relative to the 5 largest tokens) had reached its highest level since September 2018.”
However, Todaro continued that the price momentum for Bitcoin would eventually trickle down into alts, a market effect that may be in the process of occurring,
“Given the recent momentum in bitcoin, it was really only a matter of time before traders diversified into the largest alt-coins, especially as large cap alt prices remained depressed relative to bitcoin.”
Prior to today’s rally, XRP was lagging behind the broader market, a point that was even addressed in by eToro analyst Mati Greenspan. However, as Forbes contributor Charles Bovaird points out, the lack of price gains throughout the start of the year may have poised XRP for today’s massive price gain.
Todaro cites increased investment interest in XRP as contributing to the price rally, stating a particular surge from retail investors,
“As prices have risen and traditional media outlets highlight the price rise, we have seen retail traders begin to re-enter the market.”
Forbes also reports Charles Hayter, cofounder and CEO of cryptocurrency data platform CryptoCompare claiming that retail investors had targeted XRP as a strong gainer, considering its lag behind other digital currencies following the most recent rally. Todaro also added that the Coinbase addition may be contributing to the price of XRP retrospectively, considering that the application has been trending for several days now, given casual investors a more user-friendly portal to the currency.
