3 min read

Ripple (XRP) has not had a great run of it over the past few weeks. Dealing with significant lawsuits, criticism, market fit, and adoption have taken a toll on its price. From high – price of $3, its price has dropped to just under $0.35. XRP has also only managed to experience gains within the 12% range compared, which is weak compared to the other cryptocurrencies on the highest market cap list who pulled in price gains above 100% plus in the first half of 2019.

Within the first half of 2019, Binance has had gains of 434%. However XRP was the worst-performing project among the top ten cryptocurrencies.

Some Of The Ripple Army’s Biggest Believers Are Concerned

Tiffany Hayden, one of XRPs biggest champions and self-proclaimed CEO of XRP, expressed skepticism and negative remarks about Ripple’s latest bearish run, tweeting her fear of the Ripple network closing entirely if Ripple were to shutter- similar to the Stellar Network.

It Ripple shutters tonight, the network won’t last long much longer. — Tiffany Hayden (@haydentiff) July 17, 2019

Moreover, while other twitter users dismissed her tweets, more former supporters turned skeptics backed her echoing Tiffany’s sentiments and even asking her to abandon XRP altogether for Bitcoin and Litecoin. Ms. Hayden continued to share her concern about the future for XRP supporters:

I didn’t realize it until I saw the Stellar network go down. XRP supporters laughed and laughed, because somebody other themselves surely protects the XRPL from this.

Hint: Everybody else does as much or as little as you do. — Tiffany Hayden (@haydentiff) July 17, 2019

The irony of such a prominent member of the famed ‘Ripple Army’ being so blunt in her assessment of the network was not lost on many members of the crypto community, with several pointing out this fact.

Now I’ve seen everything. The biggest XRP promoters are turning on it after the price sinks below $0.3 https://t.co/y8iELPByB0 — Larry Cermak (@lawmaster) July 17, 2019

Long time $XRP shill is now a Ripple skeptic. lol Someone stopped getting paychecks. https://t.co/qUr6oKP5j5 — 𝐉𝐨𝐬𝐡𝐮𝐚 𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐬 🐺🦊 (@karbonbased) July 17, 2019

Is It Really All Doom And Gloom?

Ripple still has an ambitious goal to go toe to toe and maybe even replace current popular banking protocol SWIFT. To put in the necessary groundwork to make this dream a reality, Ripple announced xRapid, a financial tool that helps payment providers reduce their liquidity costs – Barclays and Mastercard have just recently backed, SendFriend, a company that uses xRapid for remittances.

They also announced xCurrent a protocol similar to swift that handles customers’ worldwide global payments and with the Santander bank now pushing its One Pay FX App which uses the xCurrent, the future of Ripple is far from dim.

Why This Might Be The Perfect Time To Stock Up On XRP

While this no doubt a depressing time for many XRP holders, it was pointed out by a crypto trader that as Bitcoin continues to drop, now might be the perfect time to load up on XRP.

Luke Martin, observed with major altcoins being able to bounce or show strength against a declining Bitcoin, it allows for trading opportunities not seen since April 1st, stating XRP and EOS were the best options.

Major alts being able to bounce or show strength versus a dropping Bitcoin would open up a trading opportunity that hasn't existed since April 1st. $XRP and $EOS looking the best in my view. New lows are possible as well so the early opps still carry a certain degree of risk https://t.co/FSj05zGf7x — Luke Martin (@VentureCoinist) July 17, 2019

Articles from the media do show a growing number of Ripple partnerships worldwide, but it’s still almost impossible to know if this growth is indicative of institutional usage and not just metrics-driven entirely by speculative demand. Unfortunately, though the sheer numbers of hacks against the XRP token over that last year have most probably dulled any hopes investors have for a soon-coming bullish return.

However even in the most unfortunate case Ripple Labs does fall as a company, the XRP Network would continue to exist because it is built separately on the Ripple Protocol Consensus Algorithm which 1012 public nodes and operated on a web of trusted subnetworks of nodes to ensure the system isn’t just tamper-proof but fully decentralized as well.

Featured Image Source: Mastermind Toys/Crypto Report