XRP investors are soul searching after enduring an extended bear market that began in January of 2018.
While the top cryptocurrency by market cap, Bitcoin, rallied in 2019 and again in early 2020, XRP has remained in a descending channel. With BTC up 18.60% so far this year, XRP is practically flat, moving from $0.1931 on January 1st to $0.1976 at time of publishing.
XRP and the payments startup Ripple, which owns more than half of the total supply of XRP, continues to have a large following of investors known as the XRP Army.
Alex Cobb, a prominent member of the community, points to XRP’s price movements in the 2017 crypto market bull run. XRP was one of the last coins to rally, moving from $0.2430 to an all-time high of $3.84 in less than a month – a nearly 1,500% increase.
Remember, XRP always pumps last, but it will pump the most. Patience
— Alex Cobb (@AlexCobb_) May 8, 2020
Another high-profile member of the community, Arturo Portilla, says Ripple doesn’t get the credit it deserves for working to legitimize the industry, engage with regulators and increase adoption in the corporate world.
“Someday, the anti-Ripplers will have no option but to acknowledge what the company did for the whole industry in the early days of crypto, regardless of how bad they want to see Ripple failing…
The fact is that no other company (or group of companies) has spent nearly the same amount of resources, time and talent to bring legitimacy to the crypto space.”
Meanwhile, a viral tweet from a pseudonymous XRP investor who goes by the name Stuart triggered a debate on where the cryptocurrency is headed. Here’s a snapshot of the discussion.
“XRP has the most potential. XRP has best team Ripple pushing XRP into the largest trillion dollar+ markets in the world. XRP actually has a real utility being used today. XRP price performance last few years have been absolutely pathetic for some investors. Being Rekt is not fun.” – XRP_Stuart
“This is frustrating to say the least. All the good news, partnerships, real world use cases, utility etc etc..and some crappy coins take off like wildfire while XRP is stuck in nowhere land. Let’s hope it is off to the races soon, or doubts will start creeping in.” – MaximusPrime
“Ever thought maybe the hype is ahead of the progress and possibly the progress will never amount to the hype? XRP use case won’t raise price… is there a coin out there that sees upward price momentum from its use case?” – Breal
“Look at what Ripple is building. Then you know that XRP is going to be around for a long time and adoption is around the corner. Price is only a distraction. Largest use case takes time.” – Scott Caruso
You can check out the full thread here.