XRP, the third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, looks quite prolific this year but data confirms that it has probably been increasing at a demolishing rate.
Data shows that the reduction in the sale of XRP by Ripple does rather not have a significant positive effect on the price of the token.
For so long, it has been Ripple’s status quo to sell a huge amount of XRP out of its holdings to institutional investors, but in the last few months, it has been greeted with numerous criticisms as some claims that Ripple is only interested in making profits from the sale of XRP and careless about the price of the token.
Since Q2 2019, the blockchain remittance-oriented company reduced the quantity of XRP it sells. Perhaps Ripple pondered over the sentiment of the community, even though the on-going lawsuit the company is facing as to whether XRP is a security or not may be another tangible reason for the cutdown.
The number of XRP sold out dropped from $252 million to $66 million and to $13 million in Q2 2019, Q3 2019, and Q4 2019 respectively.
Despite the cut, the company was still opened to criticism on every sale of the token it makes. However, CEO Brad Garlinghouse, in Q1 2020, responded that the company would not be profitable if it does not sell the token.
Instead of a significant positive change people expected from the reduction in the sale, a recent report from data provider Messari Crypto confirms that it has done little to help the price.
“Ripple’s reduction is XRP sales starting in Q3 ’19 did little to help the price,” Messari said.
Top 25: XRP Was the Worst Performing in Q1
According to the data provider, XRP, compared to a number of top crypto assets in the market, has been performing woefully in terms of price growth since the start of the year. Messaari illustrated with a chart that in the first quarter of the year, crypto assets like Ethereum, EOS, Binance Coin, Stellar among others performed better than XRP.
Exempting Bitcoin, Messari said: “$XRP was the worst performer in Q1 of the top 25 assets.”
$XRP was the worst performer in Q1 of the top 25 assets in our currencies sector excluding bitcoin
+ $XRP dropped out of the top 3 by marketcap as $USDT ascended the ranks
+ @Ripple's reduction is XRP sales starting in Q3 '19 did little to help the price pic.twitter.com/g56DJCQx47
— Messari (@MessariCrypto) April 10, 2020
Really, the remittance-oriented cryptocurrency has been having a rough time this year, especially in March when the market capsized.
In mid-march, XRP plunged massively, nearing its three-year low price before a recovery was witnessed this month.
Tether Outrapped XRP from Top 3
During the bumpy ride, XRP trend went down the graph to the extent of losing its position to stablecoin Tether. Due to the enlarged demand for stablecoins when the market crashed, Tether’s market cap soared, unseating XRP for a short while before the latter took back the third position.
This also happened after Ripple slashed the number of coins it sells each quarter. Between Q2 2019 and Q4 2019, the quantity of XRP sold by the company reduced by about 94%, yet no significant positive change has been noticed in the price of the token