Barely two days into the new year, XRP prices have already blown past our Ripple price prediction of $2.00. The currency is flying.
In fact, Ripple even crossed Ethereum as the second-biggest crypto in the world. At the time of writing, it had a market cap of around $90.2 billion, which raises the question: What happens now?
Well, the first step is to reconsider my XRP forecast for 2018. Clearly, I was too conservative.
So in re-evaluating the potential of XRP, I asked myself what conditions are necessary for it to reach, say, $10.00. The answer is shockingly simple:
- An explosion in XRP trading volumes
- Wider media coverage
- More payments corridors (preferably in XRP, though all new corridors raise the crypto’s potential)
- More use-cases outside of finance
Are these criteria likely to be fulfilled? I think so.
Consider that investors are petitioning Coinbase to add XRP to its trading platform. Trading volumes would explode if this development comes to pass, since Coinbase is often the entry point of new money into the crypto asset class (at least from U.S. investors).
When Litecoin was added to Coinbase, its price doubled within a week. Then, over the next few months, LTC prices shot up from $15.00 to $92.00.
Ripple Price Chart:
Also, XRP trading volumes are trending skywards. In the past month, the total value of transactions increased by 1,428%. To achieve that kind of growth without the addition of Coinbase is telling; it means that demand for XRP is stronger than expected.
Wider media coverage is also a non-issue. Ripple was recently featured in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Forbes, Quartz, and Yahoo! Finance, not to mention that the company’s CEO was interviewed on Bloomberg twice in the last week.
As for additional payments corridors, Ripple shrouds those developments in mystery. We have no idea when or where the next corridor will be formed. However, we can reasonably expect that success for Ripple’s recently formed corridors—one across the Atlantic for American Express Company (NYSE: AXP) and one from India to Singapore for Standard Chartered PLC (LON: STAN)—will lead to greater imitation.
Finally, the development of non-finance use-cases. My guess is that investors have no idea that Ripple is useful for sending all sorts of value across a blockchain—not just money.
The CEO of Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse, said in a recent interview that he wants to spend part of 2018 focusing on these alternative use-cases. Whether or not you believe him is up to you; I personally think his track record is encouraging and credible.
Analyst Take
The results of my little thought experiment are fairly persuasive (at least to myself). Ripple needs an additional $300.0 billion worth of investment to reach the $10.00 mark, and that is contingent on the criteria outlined above. I personally believe that attracting that capital will be easy if the total crypto market cap tops $1.0 trillion in 2018 (as is expected).
Therefore, our new Ripple price prediction for 2018 is $10.00.
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