Ripple released its fourth-quarter markets report this week. One thing is clear: the bear market is affecting Ripple as much as anyone else. Total sales of XRP from the company amounted to around $129 million versus the previous quarter, which saw sales of $163 million.
XRP Sales Down in Q4 But Still Wildly Lucrative
With overall sales down by over 24%, XRP still saw massive trading volume in the fourth quarter. Ripple reports an average daily volume of nearly $600 million for the quarter. Sales from Ripple Labs accounted for less than 1% of this volume. At time of writing, XRP had done a 24-hour volume of $368 million.
$40 million in sales were conducted by Ripple II, a money services business owned by Ripple, directly to institutions. Of the 3 billion XRP that Ripple was authorized to bring out of escrow to fund operations, only 600 million was used in Q4. The remaining 2.4 billion went back to new escrow accounts. Ripple is either waiting for a better market outlook to make use of these reserves or simply doesn’t have a need of more than $180 million (roughly the value of 600M XRP).
XRP was added to 30 exchanges during the fourth quarter, putting them over 100 total exchanges listing the bank-friendly token. Additionally, their xRapid product finally hit the market and saw adoption by three firms – MercuryFX, Cuallix and Catalyst Corporate Federal Credit Union. xRapid uses XRP as a settlement layer for large-scale payments between institutions. It is one of the most exciting prospects for Ripple Labs.
Token-Selling Ripple Shades ICOs
Ripple cast a bit of shade on questionable ICOs, saying:
The market continued to mature in Q4. First, we saw an increase in enforcement actions against questionable crypto projects, including ICOs. By weeding out these projects, the market will naturally contract as legitimate projects thrive and experiments or scams disappear.
Ripple Labs itself was funded by traditional venture capitalists. A large portion of its early revenue was selling tokens, which is essentially the same business model as ICOs. They continue to rely on token sales to institutions and the token itself to fund operations.
The Ripple cryptocurrency (XRP) is down over 40% from its 6-month high in September of over $0.61. It remains a far cry from its all-time high of several dollars, which thrust the market capitalization of the high-supply token to the front of the line. Despite ongoing price problems, it holds the #2 spot in overall market capitalization due to bigger bear market woes faced by former #2 Ethereum.
These figures are generally representative of the overall market. The question of actual XRP liquidity is a big one, as it is with all coins outside of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is traded on hundreds of market against the dollar, while many altcoins including XRP are traded against other cryptocurrencies, which all derive their USD value from Bitcoin.
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