On Thursday (27 September 2018), Nigel Green, the CEO of independent financial consultancy deVere Group, expressed in a blog post how bullish he was about the future of XRP, and in particular said that XRP “will hit the $1.00 mark before the end of 2018.”

deVere Group was founded in 2002 by Nigel Green. The Dubai-based firm says that it has “well over 80,000 clients in more than 100 different countries – and in excess of $10 billion under advice and administration.”

On Tuesday (25 September 2018), deVere issued a press release in which Green commented on last week’s incredible 100% rise in the price of XRP. Below, is the two-week price chart for XRP from CryptoCompare:

Green noted that although there has been “immensely positive buzz regarding cryptocurrencies in the last few weeks”, XRP had been the real star performer, and that he expected XRP to maintain its momentum:

“I believe that whilst the crypto market, in general, will be primarily bullish between now and the end of the year, it will be XRP that will continue to gather the most momentum in this period.”

“XRP will go on to gain more traction than many of its rivals because of its unique features, technologies and problem-solving capabilities. Many of these unique characteristics enable it to help businesses, including real estate and tech firms, to save money and speed-up and add more security to transactions. This is also why hundreds of financial institutions across the world are already working with XRP – and this is a trend that is set to continue and grow.”

“In addition, XRP has been cleverly positioning itself to become a leading international facilitator of global remittances and inflows. This is a huge and growing market, especially in the emerging economies of Latin America, Asia and Africa.”

“Cryptocurrencies are the future of money and, clearly, XRP is proving to be one of the most useful cryptocurrencies for businesses, organisations and individuals.”

Then, on Thursday, the day after XRP, once again, briefly overtook Ether (ETH) to become the second most valuable cryptocurrency, Green re-iterated his super bullish outlook on XRP, and continued singing its praises via a post on his company’s blog.

He started by saying: “There’s no stopping Ripple XRP!” Next, he said that he expected the usage of XRP by financial institutions around the world to “grow exponentially.”

He then made his price prediction for XRP:

“The use of XRP will rise, which will have a positive impact on its price. I am of the opinion that this cryptocurrency will hit the $1.00 mark before the end of 2018 and could even double in a year’s time as the adoption and usage of XRP skyrockets.”

Green concluded by saying:

“As the world moves away from fiat money over the next few years, we can expect to see XRP becoming the heavy hitter of the crypto-verse.”

Of course, Nigel Green is not the only influential person who is a huge fan of XRP. For example, as covered by CryptoGlobe, this is what Michael Arrington, a partner in the XRP-denominated digital asset management firm “Arrington XRP Capital”, said about XRP two months ago in an interview with CNBC’s “Crypto Trader” at the Beyond Blocks Summit in Seoul, South Korea:

“XRP is a really really good way to move money. So, we denominate our fund in XRP because it's a fantastic way to move money cross-border very quickly at almost zero cost. So, there's a lot of tribalism in cryptocurrency… The one thing they all agree on is they all hate XRP because it's centralized, they think it's corporate-managed, etc. I mean, none of that is really true. But what it is is it's a fantastic way to move money. And while the other more decentralized cryptocurrencies sort of find their way toward becoming more efficient, in the mean time, XRP is fantastic. So, from a hedge fund point of view, it's great to denominate ourselves in XRP.”

According to data from CryptoCompare, as of 12:22 UTC (on September 29th), XRP is trading at $0.5773, up 10.34% in the past 24-hour period.