Considering the Ripple news that broke on Monday, it was surprising to see XRP prices drop overnight. There were at least two important revelations from the first day of SWELL, Ripple’s inaugural conference in Toronto. Investors must be ignoring those factors.

For instance, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke came out as a closet-Ripple fan.

We knew he was speaking at the conference, but it was unclear how supportive he would be of cryptocurrencies. This could have been nothing more than a paycheck for him. However, it turns out that Bernanke has some nuanced views on crypto.

He mentioned XRP by name while saying that “The Fed, the Bank of England, and Japan are very supportive of [blockchains] because they’ll improve payment systems.” (Source: “Bernanke at Ripple Event: Blockchain Has ‘Obvious’ Benefits in Payments,” CoinDesk, October 16, 2017.)




He then went on to talk about cross-border payments, highlighting the trouble of sending funds between a German bank and an American one.

Ripple, he said, could be a good thing if it improves cost, speed, security, and “[brings] the global economy closer together.”

However, it was clear that Bernanke draws a line between enterprise blockchains and public ones. His tone was completely different when speaking about Bitcoin, calling it “an attempt to replace fiat currencies and evade government regulation and government intervention.”

Those comments sound mild by normal standards, but they are dynamite in the world of monetary policy speeches. Bernanke was essentially lobbing grenades at Bitcoin while striking a tentative truce with Ripple.

Bear in mind also that Bernanke has deep ties to regulators that oversee Bitcoin. Even investors who disagree with him on policy should pay attention to his comments because the future regulations are crafted by people exactly like him.

Therefore, it matters when he says the central bank will take “whatever action” is necessary “when bitcoin becomes a threat.”

In other news, Ripple announced that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will start using “Interledger” to complete transfers for unbanked people. The Gates were drawn to Ripple for its interoperability, which is what I’ve said for months will be the currency’s greatest asset.

Regardless of these tailwinds, investors pummeled XRP prices through Monday evening and night. At the time of writing, the Ripple to USD rate was down 8.54% to $0.252029 still afar from our Ripple price forecast.

Daily Ripple Chart:

Analyst Take:

We expect Ripple to surface its fundamental strength today. Hopefully, this drives XRP towards our short-term Ripple price prediction of $0.40, but that may well require an additional week and an additional correction. Beyond that milestone, we expect XRP to reach our $2.00 Ripple price forecast sometime in 2018.

Also Read: Ripple Price Predictions 2017: XRP Price Could Cross $1 Mark by End of Year