Ripple News Update

In its attempt to reach scale, Ripple hired a new Chief Financial Officer. His name is Ron Will, and he brings decades of experience from the financial sector. He also has considerable experience steering mid- to late-stage startups.

We skimmed by this piece of Ripple news earlier in the week, but it makes sense to go over it in greater depth. So here are some important things to know about Will, as told by himself. (Source: Ripple Welcomes New Chief Financial Officer Ron Will, Ripple, November 21, 2017.)

On why he joined Ripple: “I’ve seen, first-hand, the importance of a frictionless experience to move money globally…and the ability to be at an early stage startup that’s reshaping how cross-border payments are executed is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” On his new colleagues: “I’ve worked with a few members of the senior management team in the past. I have a high level of respect for Brad Garlinghouse and Eric van Miltenburg.” On Ripple’s path to success: “The fact that it’s the only enterprise-grade digital asset that’s best suited for institutional use, makes it a differentiator in the market.”

These quotes are obviously the result of serious PR coaching, but that’s not a bad thing. It shows that Will is a professional who can swing the big boys of finance. His appointment comes at a crucial time in the currency’s progress.

What’s Going on with Ripple Prices?

On Friday, Ripple prices looked almost identical to the day before. At the time this article went to press, the Ripple to USD exchange rate was 0.50% lower, at $0.241515. The Ripple to Bitcoin rate was, meanwhile, down 0.49% to 0.00002950 BTC.




How Active Are Investors?

On November 23, XRP trading volumes increased 44.1%, from $167.08 million to $240.69 million. This trend continued through the night and early morning, bringing total trading activity to $278.2 million.

Typically this upswing in volume would lead XRP prices higher, but yesterday’s movement defied expectation. It was an outlier in the data.

Where Is XRP Demand Coming From?

Once again, Bithumb was the most active exchange for trading Ripple coins. Investors swapped as much as $100.27 million worth of XRP on that exchange, which accounted for 37.57% of total volume processed in the last 24 hours.

Since these transactions happened in XRP/KRW pairs, it’s safe to say that Korean trading desks are driving the currency’s direction.

Meanwhile, Bittrex climbed the charts to steal the number two spot from Coinone. It accounted for 12.24% of total trading activity, whereas Coinone’s market share fell to 8.47%.

Analyst Take

In light of Ripple’s underlying business strength, we maintain bullish on our Ripple price prediction, which we see reaching $2.00 by 2018.