Despite experiencing a falloff in pricing today, after posting over a 100 percent increase in price over the last ten days, XRP has generated a substantial amount of interest over the preceding two weeks.
While price appreciation and an increase in valuation is enough to draw eyes in the crypto-space, XRP has managed to attract both casual investor interest and the possibility of large scale institutional money.
Last week XRP was in the midst of an otherwise obvious downward trend in valuation, one that saw the coin fall to $0.25 and nearly retrace all of the gains of the bullish run to start the year that saw the coin hit an all time high of $3.80. In the span of two days, the cryptocurrency appreciated over 100 percent, hitting $0.70 before adjusting to a level around 50 cents.
While the last twenty-four hours have seen further decline in XRP, the coin has managed to build significant investor intrigue, in part due to the efforts of former parent company Ripple.
Ripple, the blockchain startup behind the XRP currency, has been at the forefront of the cryptocurrency-finetech union in growing banking and institutional adoption. XRapid, the payment protocol that utilizes XRP directly for liquidity to create cheap, fast and reliable payments for cross border and around the globe has been announced to launch as early as next month. Now, XRP has evidence via Google trends that the currency is growing in both popularity as well as distancing itself from the Ripple brand.
According to the online Google trends tool, which allows for comparison of keyword terms by search volume, XRP has not only more than doubled in searches over the past week, but is putting distance between its association with Ripple–the original company behind the cryptocurrency. While XRP has managed an increase in keyword search volume, a sign that has bode well historically for both the price and interest in a coin, Ripple and other cryptocurrency variants of the blockchain startup in relation to the XRP token appear to be falling to the wayside. And for good measure.
While Ripple is still the primary holder of XRP, with over 60 billion coins locked into escrow, the company has made a concerted effort throughout 2018 to distance itself from the cryptocurrency. The company has worked to promote devices that utilize XRP, such as the aforementioned XRapid protocol for sending money globally, but for the most part has recognized–and importantly appreciated–the value to both XRP and the investment community over maintaining the integrity of decentralization in relation to cryptocurrency.
So while the argument can be made that XRP has more to gain from a tight association with Ripple, such as adoption via Western Union, Moneygram and last week’s tie to top ten U.S. bank PNC, the currency can also gain substantial value as a legitimate cryptocurrency via decentralization which will pay dividends in the long run.
Having the differentiation form between XRP and Ripple in terms of cryptocurrency based keyword search volume is a positive sign that more investors and members of the general public are beginning to recognize the coin separate from the parent company–a feature that Bloomberg found salient enough to devote an article too. While there is some brand confusion between XRP and Ripple, the former looks to make a strong push to stand on its own merit.
