Key Takeaways

• XRP’s future looks better than it was, after a judge found that the crypto was not a security if it was sold on exchanges.
• XRP is one of the oldest crypto’s around, having come onto the open market in 2014. 
• Price forecasts for the ripple coin vary, with the uncertainty about how the crypto will move beyond the legal proceedings a likely reason behind their diversity.
• One Ripple price prediction says it can reach $1.67 in two years time.

Ripple’s XRP cryptocurrency has been in the news  after New York judge Analisa Torres ruled  that the crypto was not a security, so long as it was being sold on a crypto exchange. 

The judge’s ruling, which was made on July 13 2023, put an end to nearly three years of legal wrangling as the United States Securities and Exchange Commission only partially succeeded in having it dubbed a security.

Judge Torres did find that XRP was a security if its parent company, Ripple Labs, was selling it, but was relisted by exchanges.

However, the SEC has asked for an appeal.

The case, potentially, have an effect on the SEC’s proceedings against the Binance and Coinbase exchanges.

But what is Ripple   (XRP)? How does Ripple work? What is XRP used for? Let’s see what we can find out and also take a look at some of the Ripple price predictions that were being made as of September 13 2023. 

Ripple Coin Price Prediction

Let’s examine some of the Ripple price predictions made on September 13 2023. It is crucial to bear in mind that price forecasts, particularly for a potentially volatile asset like cryptocurrency, often turn out to be inaccurate. Additionally, please remember that many long-term crypto price predictions are generated using algorithms, which means they can change at any time.

Firstly, CoinCodex  made a short-term Ripple price prediction that suggested XRP would reach $0.6638 by September 17 falling to $0.5295 by October 12. The site’s technical analysis was bearish, with 29 indicators sending negative signals compared to just four making bullish ones. 

Ripple Price Prediction for 2023

CaptainAltCoin  said XRP would fall to $0.3814 by December. PricePrediction.net  said Ripple would be worth $0.75 this year. DigitalCoinPrice  said the coin would stand at $0.94 in 2023.

Ripple Price Prediction for 2025

Moving on, DigitalCoinPrice said Ripple would reach $1.63 in 2025, while CaptainAltCoin thought it would be worth $1.48 then. PricePrediction.net had XRP stand at $1.67 in two years time.

Ripple Price Prediction for 2030

Looking at a more long-term Ripple price prediction, PricePrediction.net said it would be worth $10.69 in 2030. DigitalCoinPrice said it would trade at $4.89 then. Meanwhile, CaptainAltCoin’s XRP price prediction said it would stand at $3.70 by the start of the next decade.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Ripple

Blockchain analytics company Messari recently released its quarterly report on Ripple . In it they highlighted an increase in activity related to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the network, and outlined some key advantages and disadvantages to the platform.

They found that in the second quarter of 2023

• 53,990 average daily active addresses, down from 74,802 year-on-year and down 65,525 quarter-on-quarter.
• 1.2 million daily transactions, down from 1.3 million on both a year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter basis.
• An average market cap of $24.8 billion, up from $15.9 billion year-on-year but down from $27.8 billion quarter-on-quarter
• Quarterly revenue of $188,376, up from $87,239 year-on-year and $58,812 quarter-on-quarter.

Advantages of Ripple

In its report, Messari said Ripple

• Works well with NFTs, with the ability to create the tokens built into the core protocol.
• Is a key player in the drive for governments to create their own Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).
• Has been able to develop its ecosystem.

Disadvantages of Ripple

Messari’s quarterly report also said Ripple

• Did not support smart contracts, computer programs that automatically execute once certain conditions are met. Smart contracts are a mainstay of such blockchains as Ethereum (ETH).
• Had more active senders than receivers.
• Had seen a quarterly decline of payments of 28.4%, suggesting that people were looking elsewhere to send their crypto.

Ripple price history

Now, let’s examine some of the highlights and lowlights of the Ripple price history . While we should never take past performance as an indicator of future results, knowing what the coin has achieved can provide us with some very useful context if we want to make or interpret a Ripple price prediction.

In terms of the Ripple price history, the coin started trading at around $0.005 in 2014, before it reached an all-time high of $3.84 on 4 January 2018, as the world of cryptocurrency was caught up in a significant bubble.

The coin dropped to below $1 in March that year, but was able to break above the dollar during the bull run of early 2021. By early 2022, though, it was back below the dollar and even spent a large chunk of the year below $0.50 as the crypto market suffered a series of crashes.

Ripple in 2023

There have been some encouraging signs in 2023, though. On 1 June, XRP was worth about $0.504. Over the following six weeks or so, following the news that the SEC was suing Binance and Coinbase, Ripple struggled. It fell to $0.4593 on 16 June. The court’s ruling saw it recover to $0.8875 on July 13. Since then, it has fallen back down and, on September 13 2023, it was worth about $0.4795.

Is Ripple a good investment?

It is hard to say with any certainty right now. Pretty much everything hangs on what happens with the SEC court case.

If the SEC loses an appeal, or if a court refuses to hear it, that could boost Ripple’s price. If, on the other hand, the SEC succeeds in an appeal, it could collapse.

With a market cap of more than $25bn at the time of writing, it is the sixth largest crypto by that metric. Unless it suffers the sort of crash which affected the LUNA cryptocurrency last year, it looks like it will be at the higher end of the crypto charts for some time.

As ever, though, the crucial thing before investing in any crypto is to do your own research and never invest more money than you can afford to lose.

Will Ripple go up or down?

No one can say with any certainty. Remember that price predictions are very often wrong, and that prices can, and do, go down as well as up. 

Should I invest in Ripple?

Before you decide whether or not to invest in XRP, you will need to do your own research, not only on Ripple, but on other coins and tokens related to international money payments, such as stellar lumens (XLM). You should also remember that prices can go down as well as up, and never invest more money than you can afford to lose.

From the Whitepaper

Ripple’s whitepaper  is a technical document which aims to explain what the platform is and what XRP does.

It says that many crypto platforms suffer from being slow because every computer, or node, on the network has to work at the same time as all the others.

It says: “We present a novel consensus algorithm that circumvents this requirement by utilizing collectively-trusted subnetworks within the larger network.

We show that the “trust” required of these subnetworks is in fact minimal and can be further reduced with principled choice of the member nodes.

In addition, we show that minimal connectivity is required to maintain agreement throughout the whole network. The result is a
low-latency consensus algorithm which still maintains robustness in the face of Byzantine failures. We present this algorithm in its embodiment in the Ripple Protocol.”

Ripple (XRP) explained

In 2012 , Ripple Labs, then called NewCoin, created the Ripple payment protocol. TheRipple, or XRP, cryptocurrency powers it.

The idea was to set up a system that allows people to transfer money internationally quickly and simply. While it has not, as some crypto enthusiasts predicted, replaced the Swift/BIC international money transfer system, it has proven to be popular, and it is one of the largest cryptos by market cap.

XRP pays for transactions on the Ripple platform. People can also be buy, sell, and trade it on crypto exchanges. 

How Ripple Works

Ripple Labs’ founders are entrepreneur Chris Larsen and computer programmer Jed McCaleb . Although McCaleb left the company in 2013, he remained involved in the cryptosphere, setting up the Stellar Lumens (XLM) crypto in 2015.

Meanwhile, Larsen still works for Ripple, serving as the organization’s executive chairman, while the company’s CEO is Brad Garlinghouse. 

XRP something a little different from a lot of other cryptos. With most crypto coins, such as, for instance, Bitcoin (BTC), people are able to validate transactions and secure the network regardless of whether or not they have the approval of the people behind the blockchain. Ripple only allows people who have been approved to do this.

Compared to other blockchain networks, XRP is a lot more centralized. On the other hand, it is, at least in theory, more secure than other platforms.

Something else that makes Ripple – the organization, rather than the crypto – stand out from its competitors is that it is a registered, for-profit company. This contrasts it with a lot of other blockchain organizations, which operate on a not-for-profit basis. 

XRP is not mineable. Instead, every single one of the 100 billion XRPs that will ever exist already do exist. They are released onto the open market every month. As of September 13 2023, there were a little over 53 billion XRP in circulation.

There was a total supply of 99,988,441,546 XRP on September 13 2023. This implied that just over 11 million XRP had been burned, or removed from the market. Since Ripple does not burn XRP, then it is pretty safe to assume that the coin’s holders had, at some point, burned their crypto. 

FAQs

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Disclaimer 

Please note that the contents of this article are not financial or investing advice. The information provided in this article is the author’s opinion only and should not be considered as offering trading or investing recommendations. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability and accuracy of this information. The cryptocurrency market suffers from high volatility and occasional arbitrary movements. Any investor, trader, or regular crypto users should research multiple viewpoints and be familiar with all local regulations before committing to an investment.