XRP investors had a miserable time for the better part of 2019. No matter how much the XRP army tried to peddle hope for a recovery, the crypto asset dived deeper. But, things are looking up for XRP in 2020. It performed well in the first month of 2020 and the first five days of February have also been stellar. The third-largest cryptocurrency is now trading at around 27 cents.
Nonetheless, CEO of Galaxy Digital, Mike Novogratz believes XRP will trail behind again this year. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has, however, responded to this claim.
Novogratz: XRP Will Lag Behind In 2020
Speaking during the TD Ameritrade National LINC 2020 conference that took place in Orlando, Florida days ago, Novogratz opined that XRP will have a lousy performance again this year. Recording during the session was not allowed but leading news outlet Coindesk was able to get hold of a recording from one of the audience members. Novogratz’s exact words were:
“It did underperform immensely last year. I think it will underperform immensely again this year and it’s just because of the supply.”
He further pointed out that of the 100 billion total XRP supply, Ripple controls 60 billion XRP tokens and “that’s a lot of it”.
Brad Garlinghouse Responds
These comments touched a very sore spot as Brad Garlinghouse took to Twitter to respond. He noted that XRP has not only outperformed bitcoin in 2020 but also the wider crypto market. According to his analysis, XRP jumped by as much as 44% from the $0.19 lows at the beginning of the year to trade above $0.27.
In contrast, bitcoin climbed from $7,100 to $9,500, marking a 33% increase. This clearly pales in comparison to XRP’s year-to-date gains.
Garlinghouse also observed that Novogratz had predicted that the price of the king of cryptocurrencies would hit $20,000 in 2019, which did not happen:
“Also…this is the same guy that said bitcoin will go to 20K in 2019 ‾\_(ツ)_/‾ #notNostradamus
He did predict Tom Hanks would win an Oscar for Mr. Rogers – maybe this is the prediction he’ll get right? Personally voting for Brad Pitt though!”
Meanwhile, other members of the crypto community are commenting in the wake of Novogratz’s claim. For instance, investor Eric Dadoun noted that Novogratz’s words are not to be taken seriously because his firm has invested heavily in Ripple and therefore, he would not lambast the crypto asset “that his major portfolio piece is building around.”
The XRP price has gained 4.44% in the last 24 hours to trade at $0.278732.
