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The Ripple price had been on a tear this week, rising 89% from August 21-23. The surge was accompanied by a dramatic increase in trading volume, primarily on South Korean exchanges. However, the Ripple price began to sink on Thursday after a much-anticipated announcement did not live up to investor expectations.
Ripple’s early week rally was partially spurred on by a series of cryptic tweets posted on the official Ripple Twitter page.
On Monday, Ripple began a counting down to what appeared to be an ordinary conference announcement. However, rumors had been swirling for some time that Ripple is going to make a major move into the Asian economy, perhaps through a partnership with a major corporation or bank.
In this context, people began to read more into the tweets than was really there, anticipating that Ripple was going to make a major announcement that would confirm the thus-far unsubstantiated rumors.
The Ripple price soared.
But then the announcement came. As perhaps should have been expected, Ripple really was just making a conference announcement.
“Swell: The Future Is Here,” as the conference is titled, will take place from October 16-18 in Toronto. One of the keynote speakers will be Ben Bernanke, former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, which helps explain the reference to “banking & blockchain” coming together.
Based on the comments in the Daily Ripple/XRP discussion thread on Reddit, this was not the announcement community members were hoping for.
The Ripple price had gradually risen in the hours leading up to the announcement of Swell, but it took a steep downward turn afterward. At 14:00 UTC, the Ripple price was $0.289. Within an hour, it had dropped to $0.262, and it has continued to fall from there.
At present, the Ripple price is $0.229, a 21% decrease from its pre-announcement-level. This gives Ripple a market cap of $8.8 billion, which is about $1.4 billion less than 3rd-ranked bitcoin cash.
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