Ripple Price Starts to Make Waves on Korean Exchanges
Like most cryptocurrencies, Ripple rode the early-2017 market wave to record highs. When the markets receded in July, so did the Ripple price. August brought most cryptocurrencies a welcome recovery, but Ripple remained unable to break out of its two-month decline.
Until now.
Ripple Price Surges 44%
For most of the past week, the XRP price hovered around $0.160 with daily trading volumes ranging from $50 million to $100 million. Then, on August 22, Ripple began to surge. Within a single day, the Ripple price increased 44%, peaking at $0.255 before settling down to $0.245. This is Ripple’s highest mark since July 7. Ripple now has a market cap of about $9.5 billion, but it remains 4th in the rankings.
KRW Pairs Fuel Ripple’s Rise
Price movement this rapid is extremely uncharacteristic for Ripple. An examination of XRP exchange volume reveals that trading pairs with the Korean won play a predominant role in today’s rally.
Between Bithumb, Coinone, and Korbit, XRP/KRW pairs have more than $1.1 billion in daily volume. Even in May–when the Ripple price neared $0.40–total XRP volume did not exceed $600 million; today it has bested that mark by $1 billion.
South Korean-fueled price surges are becoming a trend. Earlier this month, Korean traders flocked to Ethereum amid fears that the United States and North Korea would go to war. Last week, Korean traders helped the bitcoin cash price break out of its slump. Though it has fallen from its all-time high of $997, the bitcoin cash price remains at double its pre-rally level. Just yesterday, the Monero price rose to a record $95 after Bithumb announced the addition of XMR pairs to its exchange.
Also of note: three other cryptocurrencies–bitcoin, ethereum, and bitcoin cash–have 24-hour trading volumes exceeding $1 billion. Altogether, the total cryptocurrency volume reached $9.7 billion for the day.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
