There has been a controversy in the cryptocurrency community on why XRP should be worth more. Earlier this year, a Twitter poll indicated 80% nearly 9000 participants would rather have XRP as second largest cryptocurrency than Ethereum. This came as a bit of a surprise considering the adverse reputation that Ripple and its token XRP have in the space.
The inevitable question is why do Ripple and XRP have so many fans and proponents? Well, the answer lies in the fact that Ripple has made a mark as the number one cryptocurrency that is focused on remittance services. The company has rolled out a number of products, foremost among which is xRapid, the cross-border payment platform.
Weiss Ratings which has publicly confessed its non-cordial relationship with Ripple also admitted that the company has distinguished itself with their impact in facilitating payment settlement around the globe. This attests to the fact that indeed, it has done really well in that area of cryptocurrency services and blockchain technology application.
These achievements unsurprisingly have not gone unnoticed by those active in the space, so naturally they would expect a corresponding price and market cap rise for XRP. some of the fans have argued several times that XRP should be the second largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, some also say that cryptocurrency data websites like Coin Market Cap do not calculate the market capitalization correctly which is why XRP competes with Ethereum for the second spot. Some have even gone as far as saying XRP should be the largest cryptocurrency with Bitcoin as number two.
This raises two questions; the first is whether it is true that websites like Forbes give the right information on XRP (market cap of over $30 billion) while the likes of CoinMarketCap which place it at around $13 billion are wrong, to which we don’t have an answer yet. The second is if Coin Market Cap data is accurate, why isn’t XRP seeing the increase it should see, considering how many people are ready to vouch for it?
The first and main reason some have given as an answer to the second question is that Ripple and XRP are a pump and dump and so will not last long enough on a surge to reach a substantial price gain. They argue that a project which focuses on pumping the price of its asset instead of innovation is not likely to succeed. The other argument is that Ripple’s so-called customers are actually partners who get paid to popularise XRP rather than pay Ripple for its services. Such a move according to the critics, does not bring in money from institutions that Ripple claims are customers.
Even worse, there is the argument that Ripple’s claim of 200 institutional clients “is a scam” the few known partners such as ‘SendFriend’ are not real companies. Infact, the writer claims some of their websites have nothing but a signup page, which he thinks is a good explanation for why the cryptocurrency is not excelling. Many XRP fans, however, argued that the customers are actually giant remittance services companies.
These arguments raise yet another question – is XRP market cap miscalculated or it’s not seeing growth because of the fault in its system? What is your take on this?
