Should I Buy XRP or is it Over for the Coin?

XRP is one of the most controversial cryptocurrencies these days, but evidently, also one that investors and traders have high hopes for, as many are constantly asking whether or not it is too late to invest in the coin at this point.

The coin has a long and complex history, especially recently, but at the end of the day, it is its future that is the biggest mystery.

The origins of XRP

XRP is the native asset of the XRP Ledger, which is a blockchain that was originally developed 10 years ago, in 2011. Its founders were David Schwartz, Arthur Britto, and Jed McCaleb. However, while created in 2011, it actually saw its official launch in 2012.

In 2013, Ripple reported that there is interest from banks for using its payment system, which is when its mission to become a remittance payment system used by financial institutions actually started. Over the following years, the company was trying to partner up with as many banks and financial institutions as possible, partnering with anyone who wanted to join up throughout the world.

At one point, it even managed to team up with the likes of MoneyGram. Meanwhile, XRP kept growing more and more, until it finally became the third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, which is a position that managed to hold onto for years.

XRP: Price performance

While XRP has regularly seen development in terms of its systems, its price was not particularly volatile and active for nearly four years of its existence. Since its launch until mid-2017, XRP only saw one notable spike, which took it from its average price at $0.002 to $0.05, only for it to go beyond the value of a cent in the following months and years.

Its real performance started in 2017 when Bitcoin started leading a rally that eventually took it to $20,000 for the first time. XRP skyrocketed as 2017 approached its end, reaching nearly $4. To this day, its all-time high is still at $3.84, as reached on January 4th, 2018.

By mid-2018, the coin’s price dropped to a price that spent years fluctuating between $0.25 and $0.30, only for XRP to once again breach this level and start seeing greater activity in 2021.

The coin’s price grew relatively steadily in the first four months, reaching but not breaching the resistance at $0.60. Finally, the resistance fell in early April of this year, allowing the coin to almost reach $2, but ultimately forcing it down when the price crashed in mid-May.

After the entire summer of slowly dropping more and more, XRP managed to start going up again in August, with the resistance at $1.20 being its major barrier ever since. At the time of writing, the coin sits at $1.10, still struggling to breach this barrier.

XRP: The controversies

As mentioned earlier, XRP is one of the most controversial major coins around. For years, it has been sued and pursued by investors who had all kinds of complaints, from misleading marketing during the ICO, to it being a security, and even a scam.

And for years, Ripple has been meeting its former investors in court battles, always managing to defend itself. The company was even accused of price manipulation over the coin after releasing new ones into circulation whenever XRP price started to grow, thus increasing its circulating supply and reducing scarcity.

However, things took an unexpected turn for the firm when they got a lawsuit in late 2020, which was filed by none other than the US SEC itself. Now, being pursued by small groups of investors is one thing, but being sued for being secured by the world’s largest regulator is quite another.

For a time, it seemed that Ripple and XRP are done for. The coin’s price, which just started growing past $0.30, crashed back down to lower $0.10s. XRP started getting delisted from one exchange after another, and its partners started abandoning it almost on a daily basis.

The most notable of them was MoneyGram, of course, which immediately started distancing itself from the project, claiming that it never actually used its RippleNet for its own transactions and that it doesn’t plan to do it at all. Ripple also quickly realized that new partnerships are out of the question, and it had to work on its defense.

However, at the same time, the company also found that not everyone shared the SEC’s views. Regulators in the UK, East Asia, and other locations took a look at its project, and they decided that they do not see the coin as a security, even publicly admitting as much. This provided XRP with new unexpected markets that started to open up, allowing it the opportunity to continue to thrive thanks to its new connections overseas.

So, while the battle was still on going back home, the project had Europe and Asia to explore and spread throughout. As for the legal battle with the SEC, Ripple decided that it would not go down without a fight. While the regulator sought court orders that would force Ripple to surrender internal discussions and emails sent by Ripple employees, the company made requests for the SEC to surrender its own internal policies regarding investing.

While it has been almost a year since the legal battle originally started, it is still ongoing at the time of writing, with no clear winner in sight.

So, is it too late to invest in XRP?

Ripple and XRP are leading the fight of their life, with the spectators being no closer to guessing which of them is going to win than they were back when it all started. However, the common opinion is that it is not too late to invest in XRP even now, for several reasons.

First, assuming that Ripple will win the legal battle, the status of its coin would finally be decided by the court, and that would be it. Ripple will be proclaimed a non-security, and its price would skyrocket. It might even return to its 3rd spot on the list of largest cryptos, and the SEC would have to leave it alone.

On the other hand, if the SEC wins, it would be a hard blow to the company and its coin, but thanks to so many accepting markets overseas, it would not be the end for Ripple or XRP. The company might decide to relocate and leave its home, but its payments network would still be as fast as it always was, and there are still financial institutions outside of the US that are, and would be willing to continue using it, so it would probably recover fairly quickly and grow again over some time.

So yes, investing in Ripple’s XRP is still a pretty decent option, as the coin is still quite strong. While it did lose its position as the third-largest crypto, it never left the top 10 list, even during the harshest moments of its battle with the SEC, so there is definitely fight left in it, and a lot of potential for investments, which its community clearly knows quite well. To learn more about this project visit our Investing in Ripple guide.