Watching the movements of cryptocurrency markets can make you feel a little seasick. And now the alt-coins Ripple and Ethereum have both entered choppy waters, you might be feeling a bit nauseous if you’ve got any money invested in them.
Last week, Ripple (which is referred to as XRP) was the talk of the town amid rumors investors would soon be able to buy and sell it on the easy-to-use platform CoinBase. This sparked so much excitement that Ripple soared to record heights and briefly made its founder as rich as Mark Zuckerberg. But now Ripple is on the slide, plunging from a high of about $3.80 (£2.80) to $1.90 (£1.40) in less than a week. Ethereum (ETH or Ether), on the other hand, has been on the up all year. It’s interesting because the ‘blockchain’ which records transactions can also store other information such as contracts and even computer programmes.
We spoke to two crypto experts to find out what was happening. Benjamin Dives, CEO of the London Blockchain Exchange (BLX), blamed the price fall of Ripple blamed on a decision by the website CoinMarketCap, which removed prices from South Korean exchanges from its calculations of digital currency rates without any warning. He told us: ‘The recent fall in the price of Ripple’s XRP token could be attributed to numerous factors – including the recent exclusion of Korean market prices on CoinMarketCap, investors taking profit, or simply just a healthy market correction from the token’s rapid rise. Ether, on the other hand, has instead enjoyed a rise from the recent market developments. ‘As investors move some of their vast Bitcoin profits to other cryptocurrencies, many cast their gaze over to the most popular decentralized computing platform in the world – Ethereum. The market is again waking up to the platform’s huge potential.’
David Moskowitz, director, and co-founder of a ‘decentralised professional network powered by Ethereum’ called Indorse, added: ‘Since the dramatic rise of Ripple, we have seen several notable personalities in the crypto community write scathing articles and posts on how Ripple value is questionable,’ he said. ‘As the speculative tide is changing, many people who rode the wave are now dumping their XRP as a result and are putting their money into other cryptocurrencies such as Ethererum. ‘I think that we will continue to see the volatility of XRP for the short to mid-term as it has now received the attention of a wider audience.’ He said the rally of Ethereum was likely to continue and added: ‘We are seeing a really strong demand for and there is no doubt the recent price rise and the price being perceived as lower when compared to Bitcoin is enticing to new buyers to the market. ‘I would expect the demand for ETH to continue to remain strong both internationally as the token sale model continues to gain steam, along with 2018 being the year that many applications are continuing to be built on Ethereum, and will soon start hitting the market.’
