Ripple (XRP) has been trading sideways since mid August. The above chart for XRP/USD shows that the price has been consolidation on the 4H time frame after Ripple (XPR) tested its trend line. This consolidation has been taking place above the $0.31 level which has now become a strong support for Ripple (XRP). The price is unlikely to fall lower from here but the consolidation suggests that a rally towards $0.44 might be likely in the days ahead. Wave trend analysis for the above chart shows that the price is ready to breakout on the 4H time frame towards a retest of $0.44. RSI conditions support a similar rally but the possibility of the $0.44 resistance being broken at this point still remains very low.
The volume for Ripple (XRP) has been on a steady decline during this entire period of consolidation. This makes it even more plausible to expect a rally from current levels as the price is now at the point of a break out. On longer time frames, Ripple (XRP) appears to have completed its correction against both the US Dollar (USD) and Bitcoin (BTC) but short term it has to break past the critical $0.44 support turned resistance in order to begin a new cycle.
Ripple (XRP) which was once considered a project of its own is now increasingly threatened by Stellar (XLM) which is seen as a superior, more scalable and secure technology by most payment services providers. Recently, Tempo dumped Ripple (XRP) for Stellar (XLM). Emerging payment solutions platforms are also increasingly turning to Stellar (XLM) over Ripple (XRP). This coupled with the lack of use cases for the XRP token as well as Ripple’s artificially large share of XRP tokens has made businesses change their mind about Ripple (XRP). Investors however seem unmoved as they expect Ripple (XRP) to continue to find use for XRP tokens and that a massive adoption is at hand.
Most Ripple (XRP) investors are strong critics of Bitcoin (BTC) but Ripple (XRP) seems to have poorly against Bitcoin (BTC) the 4H chart for XRP/BTC shows. They consider it to be an obsolete technology with no real use case in today’s world except for being hoarded and stored. This may seem very plausible on paper as Bitcoin (BTC) really is a lot more expensive than Ripple (XRP) for transactions and also a lot slower. However, where this argument loses strength is that Bitcoin (BTC) was not created because there was need for faster or cheaper transactions. It was created to protect against centralized control and to allow for more decentralization, immutability, security and protection against inflation.
Ripple (XRP) is a great project in itself but it will have to present more than just faster or cheaper transactions as its selling point. Working towards more decentralization or immutability may be difficult at this stage but at least the company can set milestones for when it plans to do what with the XRP tokens. That will catch attention of not just the mainstream investors but also large businesses for cross border payments that have been relying on banks until now.
