[caption id="attachment_108278" align="alignleft" width="300"] flickr.com/Jason Benjamin[/caption]
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated a Ripple price prediction of $2.00 for 2017. This was the result of an unfortunate typo. Our view---which was laid out in August and reiterated almost daily---maintains that XRP could reach $1.00 in 2017 and $2.00 in 2018. We regret the mistake.
Ripple News Update
As Bitcoin prices approach $19,000, investors are buying into its utopian promise of a single, digital, frictionless currency that’s usable everywhere on Earth. It’s a wonderful dream, but the reality is quite different. In actuality, Bitcoin transaction costs are spiraling out of control. One Twitter user alleged that he paid $16.00 in fees for a $25.00 transfer. This would suggest that 40% of the total transaction went toward fees. What’s going on here? Bitcoin was supposed to eliminate costs, or at least make them negligible. But its blockchain is persistently slow and expensive. This bodes ill for the value of BTC coins, but it also forms the basis of our excellent Ripple news this morning. Namely, that XRP is facing no such issues. XRP can process 1,500 transactions at a predictable cost of $0.0004 per transaction. Moreover, it can send those funds in just 3.3 seconds.Ripple Price Chart:
Bitcoin is medieval technology by comparison.
It can only send 16 transactions per second, and those take approximately 45 minutes to reach their destination. Brand name recognition is Bitcoin’s only advantage.
XRP Prices and Trading Volumes
Yesterday, I wrote a Ripple news update about declining trading volumes. I cautioned investors not to read too deeply into the sudden fall below $1.0 billion because it was just one data point, and one data point is not a trend. I hope you heeded that warning, dear reader, because XRP trading volumes surged in the last 24 hours to $1.67 billion.[pc-signup-from id="bc-report"]
At the same time, Ripple prices advanced 5.05% against the U.S. dollar, bringing the XRP to USD rate to $0.790360. Meanwhile, the XRP to Bitcoin rate grew 10.73% to 0.00004360 BTC.
