Interest in XRP Highest in Two Years as Price Rides A Rollercoaster

The interest in the term ‘XRP‘ has reached its highest point in more than two years, as the price of the third-biggest cryptoasset by market capitalization has more than doubled in a week.

According to Google Trends, the interest in this Ripple-affiliated project is now highest it has been since the late September 2018. The only time it was higher than the level seen in 2018, was during the December 2017-January 2018 peak.

Interest in XRP in the past 12 months:

We can also compare this to the interest expressed in bitcoin (BTC), which stands as a giant (the red line) over XRP (the blue line) according to the chart below. BTC also saw its peak during the January 2018 frenzy, spiking again in mid-October, and reaching the current level that it previously saw in late June 2019.

And as the XRP price was rising to its highest point since May 2018 (USD 0.765), crypto analytics firm Santiment noted that “the amount of unique addresses transacting on the XRP network in a single day (24,408) was the highest output since May 1st.”

Furthermore, XRP rose to the position of the second most popular page on CoinGecko.

Then, a twist. XRP saw a swift crash, hurting those who bought the top.

That said, it followed that with a quick comeback, currently (14:55 UTC) trading at USD 0.667, after seeing a 23% rise in a day, 121% rise in a week, and 168% in a month. It’s still lower than the USD 0.766 it reached today.

But it’s not really clear what has been driving this demand in the first place, as is the case with many other rallying altcoins also.

Among recent events, Ripple announced their partnership with the UK-based financial services company MoneyNetint. Additionally, Ripple Labs filed a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office earlier this month, for a new product dubbed Paystring – “intended to cover the categories of electronic financial services, namely, monetary services for receiving and disbursing remittances and monetary gifts in fiat currencies and virtual currencies over a computer network and for exchanging fiat currencies and virtual currencies over a computer network,” as the filling said.

Ripple could also have benefited from the success of their partners.

Furthermore, another event is nearing – the planned December 12 airdop of 45bn governance Spark tokens to XRP holders of non-custodial wallets by blockchain platform Flare Network, which is backed by Ripple’s investment arm Xpring, rebranded to RippleX. Per Flare, 28 exchanges currently support the airdrop.

Also, as reported today, Ripple has posted a job advertisement as it looks to recruit a Senior Director for Central Bank Engagements – the clearest indication yet that the company is planning to increase its focus on central bank digital currency-related initiatives on the XRP Ledger in the near future.

Meanwhile, others argue that people buy XRP because they can’t afford BTC.

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