What Influences Ripple (XRP) Price?
Cryptocurrencies—like any other asset—are often affected by various factors in the market. Certain factors can cause their price to either rise, fall, or stay relatively the same.
Cryptocurrencies such as XRP tend to be a lot more volatile simply because they’re still at an early stage of development, as compared to other investing instruments and currencies. So, as investors experiment with digital assets, prices tend to go up and/or down quite frequently.
Let’s look at other factors that might influence the price of XRP.
Emerging Market
Cryptocurrency is still an emerging market, and Ripple’s XRP is no different. Even though crypto is gaining popularity, it’s still a relatively small market when compared to traditional currencies. This means that even relatively small influences—such as a group of people holding XRP tokens—can influence the price.
Speculation
The crypto market runs on speculation. In order to make profits, investors bet that the prices will rise or fall by buying and selling cryptocurrencies such as XRP. If investors can pick when the price of XRP will burst upward, and buy right before it does, then they can make huge profits.
Investors can also get returns if they short sell XRP right before it crashes. As many investors try to guess the up and down swings of the crypto market, this causes even more volatility in an already fluctuating market.
Pressure of the regulatory bodies on XRP and the entire cryptocurrency market in general. In December 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that Ripple raised $1.3 billion through the sale of digital assets known as XRP in an securities offering. In July 2023, a ruling was passed by the court in the dispute between SEC and Ripple in favor of the latter. The court recognized that the XRP token is not a security. Despite the fact that this is only a partial victory, analysts believe that complete dismissal of SEC claims could serve as a strong growth driver.
Purely Digital Asset
Most cryptocurrencies such as XRP are purely digital assets. So, these assets that have no real tangible value, that aren’t backed by any physical commodity or currency.
Therefore, their price is solely determined by supply and demand. In any financial market, supply and demand can vary based on many factors. In the crypto space, there have been fears centered around security breaches, lack of regulation, and even blockchain outages that have scared investors away.
Scarcity
Like many other cryptocurrencies, XRP was designed around the principle of finite supply. In fact, Ripple has a finite quantity of 100 billion. No more XRPs will ever be created after this. And the number of XRPs will decrease over time, as it’s consumed with every transaction that’s made. This means that XRP, like many other tokens, has a form of token-burning mechanism in place.
So, each time a transaction is completed using XRP, a small amount is put up by the sender. And the XRP is destroyed in the process, which reduces this amount from the total supply. So, as more people continue to purchase XRP and use the Ripple platform, there is bound to be scarcity, which can cause its price to skyrocket.
FED Monetary Cycle
The FED often raises interest rates to fight inflation. And it’s a known fact that higher interest rates can trigger market volatility, especially in already unstable markets like cryptocurrency. So, whenever interest rates increase, expect the price of XRP to rise and/or fall sharply.
Regulatory Issues
Government regulation is a factor that can influence cryptocurrency prices, including the price of XRP. Regulations can either make the price of crypto flourish or plummet. In the case of XRP, prices could fall due to regulation issues.
For example, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Ripple of selling XRP in an unregistered securities offering to investors in the U.S. and worldwide.
These types of issues can cause investors to lose trust in XRP, which can lower demand and, ultimately, decrease its value in the market. In fact, this is precisely what happened. The SEC lawsuit caused a major decline in the price of XRP.