Altcoins

BTC’s Market Share Drops Consecutively for 14 Days – Dominance Ratio Slides to 60%

15/02/2020 by Idelto Editor

Cryptocurrency markets have been climbing higher in value as coins like BTC have gained over 19% during the last 90 days. However, many other digital assets have seen much larger gains and BTC dominance has been sliding downwards consecutively for the last 14 days.

Also Read: Craig Wright’s $100B Theft Claim – BTC and BCH Used His Database Without Permission

BTC’s Ratio of Market Dominance Sinks to 60%

During the last few weeks, BTC dominance has dropped from a high of 70% to a low of 60%. The term and metric BTC dominance is the ratio of BTC’s market capitalization versus all the other coin market caps. So the current market valuation of the entire cryptoconomy is around $305 billion and BTC captures 61% of that today with a market valuation of around $186 billion. BTC has always been the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and prior to February 2017, the asset captured more than 80% of the entire cryptoconomy for eight years straight. However, the video tweet below shared in 2018 shows how crypto dominance metrics can change drastically over time.

The evolution of the altcoin market share and BTC dominance #cryptocurrency #cryptosec #Crypto #cryptotwitter #altcoins #cryptotrader #cryptotrading #blockchain #btc #eth #bch #eos #ltc #xrp #bitfinex #cryptoexchange #binance #bitmex #crypto #cryptocurrencynews#cryptotrading pic.twitter.com/1IcerX7BHC

— Cryptosec (@vivasatori) September 15, 2018

After February 26, 2017, BTC dominance slid from 85% to a low of 40% one month later. At the same time, Ethereum (ETH) spiked to an all-time high of 31% of the cryptoconomy’s overall valuation and XRP was at 17%. A number of people believe that BTC’s rising network fees and clogged backlog (mempool) of transactions in 2017 and 2018 attributed to the decline. Alongside this, many crypto proponents and traders referred to the time as “alt season,” in which a variety of alternative digital assets reduce BTC’s share of the entire coin market cap.

After BTC dropped to a low of 40%, the dominance metric slid even lower in January 2018 as BTC dominance was around 33%. Since then, the digital currency has regained a lot of market cap dominance and BTC had risen to close to 70% on September 8, 2019. However, after the jump to 70%, BTC’s share of the cryptoconomy has been sliding once again. From September’s high of 70%, BTC dominance has dropped down to 60% on February 15, 2020, losing roughly 10%. The sliding metric has been due to other digital assets that have done far better percentage-wise as far as gains are concerned. For instance, during the last 90 days, BTC has gained 19%, but ETH jumped 52%, XRP 26%, BCH 82%, and BSV rose by 185% in that time period. BTC dominance has slid consecutively for the last 14 days straight to its current low and only today has it started to rise again slightly. It’s been one of the longest downward slides for BTC dominance since September 2018.

Are Market Valuations and Dominance Important Metrics?

Even though BTC dominance is a metric used by crypto market price aggregation websites, many proponents do not believe the data reflects any real value. Market caps only reflect the current worth of every coin circulating in real-time and some people think the data can be skewed. Despite the fact that a number of crypto proponents believe market caps and dominance are inadequate value metrics and do not necessarily reflect the project’s real worth, these metrics are used by the majority of crypto enthusiasts. In the early days, after assets like namecoin, ripple, litecoin, and mastercoin appeared, the website coinmarketcap.com was developed and the public were able to compare coins based on market valuations. There’s now a great variety of coin market cap aggregation websites that show similar data and provide other statistics too like trade volumes.

Despite some believing that market cap lists are not a good reflection of real value, individuals find the data very important. As mentioned above, investors believe there are significant reasons for BTC dominance declines, whether it was the network stress or alt season that prompted the decline from 85% to 33%. Market caps and dominance metrics show investors the level of risk involved as small-caps, mid-caps, and large-caps see different types of movements.

Traditionally, mid to small market caps are far more volatile than larger-cap cryptocurrencies and they can spike in price and drop in value very quickly. People view market valuation and dominance as a reliability metric because large caps usually present less risk to investors. Smaller crypto market caps provide investors with high-risk trading situations which can be good or bad depending on how the individual is trading.

The fact that BTC lost 61% of the dominance it commanded over the entire cryptoconomy between February 2017 and January 2018 is a metric of great importance to a lot of crypto enthusiasts. When BTC’s dominance climbed from 33% back to 70%, some maximalists and hardcore BTC supporters said that “altcoins were dying.” Although ever since this, altcoin values have been outperforming BTC by a long shot. Lesser known coins are also outpacing many coins in the top 20. BCH and ETH’s rise during the last 90 days did outperform BTC, but coins like presearch (PRE 2,641%), cryptaur (CPT 1,351%), htmlcoin (HTML 333%), vetri (VLD 322%), and Digixdao (DGD 308%) did even better.

Where do you see the cryptocurrency markets heading from here? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Disclaimer: Price articles and market updates are intended for informational purposes only and should not be considered as trading advice. Neither Bitcoin.com nor the author is responsible for any losses or gains, as the ultimate decision to conduct a trade is made by the reader. Always remember that only those in possession of the private keys are in control of the “money.” Cryptocurrency prices referenced in this article were recorded on February 15, 2020, at 9:30 a.m. ET.

Images via Shutterstock, Trading View, Bitcoin.com Markets, Twitter, coinmarketcap.com, Fair Use, Pixabay, and Wiki Commons.

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IOTA Network Still Down: How the Next Bitcoin Killer Screeched to a Halt

14/02/2020 by Idelto Editor

On February 13, the IOTA network came to a screeching halt and the IOTA Foundation reports that $1.6 million worth of the native currency was stolen. The following day, the IOTA network status page still shows the mainnet is “not operational” and the development team has found an “exploit related to the Trinity Wallet.”

Also Read: IOTA, EOS, XLM, ADA – 4 ‘Bitcoin Contenders’ With Zero Use Cases and Barely Any Infrastructure

IOTA Trinity Wallet Compromised for $1.6M

The IOTA network is a hot topic within the cryptocurrency community right now, with people discussing the network’s recent outage. At the time of publication, IOTA’s network status page says “Mainnet (1341599), Not operational, TPS: 0.6500.” Alongside this message are multiple status updates from the core development team. At first, the team heard several reports of theft and decided to warn people using Discord and Twitter.

The developers also said: “As a precaution, we ask you to keep your Trinity wallet closed for now.” Following the initial investigation, IOTA programmers decided to turn off the “coordinator to make sure no further theft can occur until we find out the root cause of these thefts.” Since the initial announcements, the topic has been trending among the crypto community across social media. The team also warned the community on Twitter and explained that law enforcement were involved. The official IOTA Twitter account stated:

Currently, IOTA is working with law enforcement and cybersecurity experts to investigate a coordinated attack, resulting in stolen funds. To protect users, we have paused the coordinator and advise users not to open Trinity until further notice.

IOTA Network Still Down: How the Next Bitcoin Killer Screeched to a Halt — Even after the two warning tweets from the IOTA Twitter account, the page still has a pinned tweet on its profile showcasing the introduction of the Trinity Wallet.

Despite this message, the Twitter account still has a pinned Twitter post that explains the Trinity wallet is “secure.” After the warning tweet and update message that disclosed the team shut off the IOTA Coordinator, many people on Twitter asked what they meant by the phrase “paused the Coordinator?” Commentator Eric Wall discussed the IOTA fiasco on Twitter where he’s well known for calling out the vulnerabilities tied to the IOTA network. Wall stated:

A question that keeps me up at night: Is it possible to create a rubbish coin based on advanced bullshit, build a community of misguided fans nevertheless, run it centralized for 5 yrs, hard fork-copy the design of a real working project, keep the community and become a success?

This is very bad news, what’s going to happen to all the Bosch control system that IOTA is powering ! Think of all the Volkswagon vehicles that can no longer operate because the entire network is shut down.

This is worse than Y2k. I’m going into my bunker to prep for doomsday. https://t.co/DK4VB3Oipv

— Kay Kurokawa (@kaykurokawa) February 13, 2020

‘Refrain from Questioning Community Moderators – IOTA Team Is Developing a Mitigation Strategy’

IOTA developers noted in another update that the IOTA Foundation has been working around the clock to investigate the matter. “Most evidence is pointing towards seed theft, cause still unknown and under investigation,” the IOTA status page noted. “Victims (around 10 that identified with the IOTA Foundation so far) all seem to have recently used Trinity,” the developers added.

Iota network paused. LMAO. THEY PAUSED IT. WHAT IS THIS A VIDEOGAME? LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

— Shillhouse (@shillycrypto) February 13, 2020

On February 14, the IOTA team gave the public another update which said they had found the exploit and are “now working on resolving the issue.” IOTA engineers insisted that the exploit was definitely related to the Trinity wallet and stressed “the IOTA core protocol is – as already communicated before – not breached.” IOTA team members further disclosed:

We know that you would like to understand more details, but ask you to refrain from questions towards the community moderators due to the parallel ongoing coaction with law enforcement. The teams are currently developing a mitigation strategy. We will share all details about the exploit in due time and (of course) publish a complete incident analysis as well.

The discussion regarding IOTA’s lack of decentralization is at the heart of the conversations on social media. The leadership at IOTA seems to be extremely fragile according to a recent blog post and the chain stopped working for 15 hours during the last week of December 2019 as well. Despite all the craziness surrounding the IOTA project, the market has remained the 21st largest blockchain by market capitalization. IOTA has gained 1% this week despite the paused Coordinator.

What do you think about the issues with IOTA during the last 24 hours? Let us know in the comments section below.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Twitter, Fair Use, and the IOTA Status Page.

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$10K Bitcoin Prompts Influencers to Call a Bull Market

13/02/2020 by Idelto Editor

Cryptocurrencies have gained significant value over the last few weeks and it’s causing exuberance among digital currency proponents. Now a number of traders and influencers believe bitcoin and other coins are in bullish territory. Despite the surge to $13K last July and the deep pullback that followed, BTC investors and influencers have no issue believing that crypto is on the threshold of another bull market.

Also read: XRP Still Third Largest Crypto by Market Cap After Founder Dumps 1 Billion Coins

‘Calling the Bull’ Is a Bold Move, But a Number of People Are Doing So After BTC Surpasses $10K

Bitcoin traders, analysts, and thought leaders on social media and forums seem to think that the crypto market is facing another bull run. Statements about a “bull market” and a possible “altcoin season” are littered all over Twitter and news articles about the cryptoconomy’s swift rise. You can find a number of crypto influencers explaining that the bitcoin bull market is overdue for a variety of reasons.

Some people claim the reward halving is pushing BTC’s price up, they say miner capitulation is over, the BTC hashrate has touched an ATH, and most of the non-ideological investors capitulated. Moreover, lots of crypto investors are stressing that “this time is different” even though they know calling a bear or bull market requires judgment and is considered a bold call. But this hasn’t stopped a number of crypto’s influential figures from doing so.

“Early signs of a bull market,” explained @American_hodl on Wednesday. “I am finding myself explaining bitcoin to skeptics and new entrants again. This did not happen during the bear. During the bear, it was just us here.”

Last bull market, this is how fast #Bitcoin moved:

$8k – $10k: 11 days
$10k – $12k: 7 days
$12k – $14k: 1 day
$14k – $16k: 1 day
$16k – $18k: 8 days

Now consider the fundamentals today vs 2017. The next bull run will be insane.

— Bloqport.com (@bloqport) February 10, 2020

However, other people disagree with American_hodl and the others who assume the market has turned bullish. Some individuals have certain price points that need to be obtained until they call the bull. “We aren’t in a bull market until we close above $10.7k,” emphasized @llamamarket. “So I’m patient but it looks more likely I was wrong about $5k at least at this very moment. I’ll keep everyone posted if/when I buy.” The specific price point at which a bull market occurs has been a trend lately and the crypto influencer Luke Martin touched upon the subject on February 6, tweeting:

Fun observation about BTC in a bull-market is the post each day stating: ‘Bitcoin isn’t bullish until we cross $10k’ which quickly turns into ‘Not bullish until we cross $11.6k’ which quickly turns into ‘Not bullish until we cross $14k,’ which turns into ‘Not bullish until…’

Bullish Pomp Tweets ‘Altcoin Season’ Phases, and Never Shorting the Bull

Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano, the well known cofounder of Morgan Creek Digital Assets has been talking about the bull run lately too. On Twitter, Pomp felt the need to give an “important message as we enter the next bitcoin bull market.” Pomp explained: “BTC is very volatile, you can lose all of your money, only invest what is ok to lose, Twitter is not investment advice, don’t buy BTC with credit cards, keep low time preference, [and] do your own research.” When BTC crossed the $10K zone, Pomp let his 309,000 Twitter followers know that he still thinks “bitcoin will hit $100,000 by end of December 2021.” In between all the social media and forum discussions about the bull market, a number of individuals say that “altcoin season or altseason” typically happens before the BTC bull market or comes in phases.

People underestimate how quickly Bitcoin will go from $20k to $50k and then $100k.

Most of the new people have never seen a full bull market. They have no idea how much Bitcoin will pump once it really gets going!

— Bitcoin Macro (@BTC_Macro) February 1, 2020

Managing partner at Blocktown Capital, Joseph Todaro, discussed the altseason topic and the next bull market on Wednesday. “This is the first altseason of the next bull market,” Todaro tweeted. “You only get 3 real altseasons: The early alt pump when bitcoin is still less than ATH (weak), the mid alt pump after bitcoin passes ATH ~$20k (strong), [and] the late alt pump as bitcoin marks cycle top (strong). Bitcoin just hit $10,000.” Todaro also quipped and said:

You know we are in a bull market when Peter Schiff refuses to tweet about bitcoin.

Despite knowing about the prior BTC price dump after July’s $13K high, bitcoiners everywhere are still calling the bull after the $10K position was reached. “Bitcoin is currently in an intense bull market and investors are getting excited,” another individual tweeted on Wednesday.

“Never short bitcoin in a bull market,” explained the BTC thought leader Whale Panda on Tuesday. “Never short bitcoin, period,” the popular Twitter account @Arminvanbitcoin replied to Whale Panda’s statement. Crypto Twitter influencer Paul McNeal from thecryptocurator.com tweeted to his 20,000 followers about the bull market situation as well: “Market Cap goes up – Bitcoin dominance goes down — Welcome to the bull market of 2020.”

What do you think about the investors and influencers calling the bull market or calling an altcoin season? Do you think that crypto markets and BTC prices are in a bull market right now? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation, endorsement, or sponsorship of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Price articles and market updates are intended for informational purposes only and should not be considered as trading advice. Neither Bitcoin.com nor the author is responsible for any losses or gains, as the ultimate decision to conduct a trade is made by the reader. Always remember that only those in possession of the private keys are in control of the “money.”

Image credits: Shutterstock, Twitter, Fair Use, and Pixabay.

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Altcoin Season Trending – LINK, XTZ, BSTX, HBAR Gain Up to 120% in 24h

12/02/2020 by Idelto Editor

The last few days have shown bullish price activity across the list of top cryptocurrency markets. There’s been a lot of focus on coins like BTC, ETH, BCH, and EOS, but digital assets like HBAR (120%), STX (52%), XTZ (20%) and LINK (13%) have seen much larger gains this week. The cryptoconomy has surpassed the $300 billion range and a few speculators think an “altcoin season” is upon us.

Also Read: Ethereum vs Tron: Comparing Data, Defi and Stablecoins from Both Chains After Viral Tweet

Cryptoconomy Jumps Over the $300 Billion Threshold With Smaller Coins Making Significant Gains

During the early morning trading sessions on Wednesday, the overall market valuation for all 5,000+ digital currencies the $300 billion mark. BTC surpassed the $10K zone, ETH is hovering around $250 per coin, and BCH is climbing toward $500 a unit. Aside from the market capitalization giants, a number of smaller crypto contenders have been gathering significant gains. For instance, one asset traders have been eying lately is chainlink (LINK), a decentralized oracle project built on the Ethereum blockchain.

Chainlink (LINK)

On February 12, LINK has gained 13.4%, and for the last seven days is up over 47%. Each unit is swapping for $4.19 and there’s $1.4 billion in reported chainlink trade volume today. However, “real volume” statistics from Messari.io shows there’s only $163 million LINK trades on Wednesday. Because chainlink came out recently it has already spiked to an all-time high (ATH) of $4.36 which is only 5% higher than the current spot market price.

Link has finally broken out!!!! Say hello to a $6 Link very soon. Go link marines 🚀🚀🚀#XRPCommunity #link #Chainlink #ALTSEASON pic.twitter.com/sCPHjOkzjY

— Blockchain Barrister⚡️🇬🇧 (@blockbarrister) February 7, 2020

Tether (USDT) captures the most LINK trades with 42% of global trade volume which is followed by BTC at 33%. This is followed by USD (15%), ETH (5.4%), KRW (1.7%), and TUSD (0.79%). The Chainlink project recently partnered with the Swipe wallet application and card platform. Gemini Custody also announced that the firm has added support for LINK.

Altcoin Season Close – LINK, XTZ Heat Up With Over 700% in 12 Months — Chainlink (LINK) price on Wednesday, February 12, 2020. LINK has gained 871% against USD during the last year.

Tezos (XTZ)

Tezos (XTZ) is another blockchain network linked to a digital token that has jumped considerably in value over the last week. At press time, XTZ is up more than 20% and it’s up 51% for the week. Reported trade volume shows there’s $173 million of XTZ trades today but “real volume” data shows it’s roughly around $125 million. Despite being up over 50% for the last seven days, XTZ is still down 75% from its $11.20 ATH. On Wednesday, the asset is trading for $3.30 per XTZ and the currency is up over 748% during the last 12 months.

#Tezos having it’s own #altseason!

All time highs, aiming for top 5 in crypto market cap, it’s on full blown rocket mode! 🚀🚀🚀

At there are still doubters! Lmao$xtz #crypto #CryptoTwitter #blockchain #SmartContracts #buytezos #fomo #btfd #hodl #staking $btc $eth pic.twitter.com/lhQlMkdbid

— Mr_Digital_Assets (@MrDigitalAssets) February 9, 2020

Unlike many other coins losing against BTC, XTZ is up 196% against BTC as well. The most traded pair with tezos today is tether (USDT) which captures 35% of all XTZ trades. This is followed by BTC (35%), USD (23%), EUR (2.6%), and KRW (1%). Tezos hasn’t seen any crazy news updates that would justify the surge XTZ markets have seen, but the cryptocurrency’s staking yield is fairly decent with an annualized yield of 6.9%.

Blockstack (STX)

Lastly, Blockstack’s SEC approved project and coin has been doing well during the last two weeks. Blockstack (STX or BSTX) is up over 44% on February 12 and it’s trading for $0.22 per unit. According to Messari.io, STX has a reported trade volume of around $15.7 million and “real volume” statistics are exactly the same. Only a few currencies are paired against STX which include BTC (67%), USDT (29%), and BNB (2.8%). STX is a fairly new market with no recorded ATH, and no year-over-year price history yet.

Blockstack has been in the news for announcing that node operators would be rewarded in BTC. However, the project has been scrutinized by publications such as The Block for its alleged key milestone of 1 million verified users. This figure has been questioned by journalists and the topic has been discussed widely on social media. Because the project touched the milestone it unlocked investor funds that can be used to further development.

Altcoin season in full swing! #Bitcoin dominance crashing! pic.twitter.com/3Nck8OvAE5

— gaurav.NIMESH (@gauravNIMESH18) February 9, 2020

A few other notable forerunners today include hedera hashgraph (HBAR) which has jumped over 120% in the last 24 hours. Sophiatx (SPHTX) is up 171%, vite (VITE) gained 77% and omnitude (ECOM) climbed 43% this Wednesday. A number of traders and analysts are already stating that crypto markets have turned bullish and some believe we are seeing the infamous “altcoin season.” Meanwhile, while these speculators say this time around is different, other analysts point to the bullish markets that took place in June and followed with a bearish downtrend. It’s going to take a lot more movement to convince these skeptics that an altcoin season is here or that the bulls have gained full control over the cryptoconomy.

What do you think about the cryptoconomy’s current action? What do you think about these three cryptocurrencies and the price movements this week? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Markets.Bitcoin.com, Trading View, Fair Use, Twitter, and Pixabay.

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XRP Still Third Largest Crypto by Market Cap After Founder Dumps 1 Billion Coins

10/02/2020 by Idelto Editor

Crypto traders and speculators have been discussing the digital currency XRP (ripple) lately because the price has been stagnant compared to other digital assets. Some venture capitalists and analysts plan to short XRP, while other speculators believe the crypto is poised for a price jump in the future. Additionally, crypto enthusiasts have been discussing Ripple cofounder Jed McCaleb selling 1 billion XRP.

Also read: Bitcoin, Tesla Stock, Tron: How Warren Buffett Got His First Bitcoin

A Closer Look at XRP

The digital currency XRP and the Ripple project have always been a controversial topic among cryptocurrency supporters. Lots of people love and advocate for XRP, while others believe the network is pure garbage. According to the project’s creators, the Ripple network is a real-time gross settlement system that has a native token called XRP. The project was launched in 2012 and XRP is one of the oldest digital currencies in comparison to networks like BTC.

Our newsdesk decided to look at data points to see how the digital asset weighs up against BTC’s market and network performance. News.Bitcoin.com analyzed data from onchain, the economics, development and the XRP project’s prominence on social media. Further, we took a look at today’s opinions from crypto influencers and analysts speculating on XRP digital currency markets and the network’s performance. Long ago, XRP was called “ripple” but most people refer to the cryptocurrency these days as simply XRP. When the digital currency was launched, developers created 100 billion units but at press time there’s less than half that number in circulation (43.6 billion).

XRP is trading for $0.27 per coin today and there’s 43,698,224,662 XRP in circulation. Tallying up each coin’s worth plus the number of XRP in circulation makes XRP the third largest blockchain by market capitalization. According to Messari.io, XRP’s trade volume this week was between $325-660 million per day, but the data site claims “real volume” during the last 24 hours is around $121 million. XRP is down 92% from its $3.84 per unit all-time high (ATH). During the last year against USD, the currency is down 11% and against BTC, XRP is down 66% over the same timeframe. As far as volume by currency is concerned, Cryptocompare indicates that tether (USDT) is the top coin swapped with XRP, capturing 46% of all trades. This is followed by BTC (17.68%), USD (8.77%), KRW (6.96%), ETH (3.60%), JPY (3.08%), and EUR (1.80%).

Crypto Analysts and Traders Wonder if XRP Prices Will Spike or Remain Stagnant

Some traders believe XRP is poised for a spike in value, while other analysts think people should avoid XRP like the plague. For instance, a recent article from Forbes discussing the cofounders of Multicoin Capital is titled: “Avoid XRP Says Multicoin; Bitcoin’s Big Rally.” Within the editorial, it notes that Multicoin Capital’s Kyle Samani and Tushar Jain have been shorting XRP. Venture capitalist and Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz discussed XRP “underperforming” in a series of tweets on February 6.

“XRP and many other cryptos, like ETH are still in the ‘proving’ phase. They aren’t going to succeed as solely a store of value as BTC has taken that lane,” Novogratz tweeted last Tuesday.

$XRP – Once in a while you gotta stop and look around…. you could miss it

Spring it! pic.twitter.com/45VcIwt7xZ

— TraderXO (@TraderX0X0) February 1, 2020

Meanwhile, a recently published report by Steve Muchoki tells a different story and says that the “XRP price can reach $0.60 in the near future as XRP’s popularity is growing.” “Ripple’s XRP price is showing all the signs of reaching $0.60 in the near future, as it is supported by different technical and fundamental aspects,” Muchoki wrote on Monday. The article mentioned a recent Twitter poll about which altcoins will last the test of time and XRP came out winning. The writer also detailed that Ripple might go public in 2020 with an initial public offering and highlighted that “the total supply is double the circulating supply.” Despite Muchoki’s opinion, many crypto market observers have noticed Ripple cofounder Jed McCaleb has allegedly sold a good portion of his XRP holdings.

McCaleb Sells a Billion XRP

A report written by blockchain analytics provider Whale Alert estimates that McCaleb has sold a lot of XRP since 2014. Whale Alert notes that McCaleb acquired roughly 9 billion XRP since Ripple’s founding days and in September 2019 Whale Alert reported on the transfer of 100 million XRP from Ripple to McCaleb’s wallet. The blockchain analytics researchers managed to find around 8 billion of McCaleb’s alleged stash of XRP.

“In total, we managed to track the sales of 1.05 billion XRP (almost exclusively through Bitstamp) between 2014 and 2019,” Whale Alert’s report highlights. “At an average sale price of 0.129 cents per XRP, the total sale amount was $135 million USD.”

As far as transactions per day are concerned, XRP has been outpacing BTC in that department. Coin Metrics shows that BTC averages around 300,000 transactions (txns) every 24 hours, but XRP is pushing 800,000 to 900,000 txns a day and has recently seen upwards of 2 million per day.

XRP has around 209,000 Reddit subscribers and 945,000 Twitter followers, giving the coin a 21% social benchmark according to Coindesk crypto data. As far as development, XRP has 482 Github watchers and 81 Github contributors which is significantly smaller than other coin contributor counts. The XRP codebase has been forked over 1,000 times but the most prominent fork is the Stellar (XLM) network. As far as merged pull requests on Github are concerned, XRP has seen over 2,400 while BTC merged pull requests stand at 12,200.

XRP Still Faces a Number of Unknowns

XRP believers think Ripple’s partnerships with financial incumbents will help XRP succeed. And XRP proponents also wholeheartedly believe XRP will dominate other cryptos like BTC in the future and help decentralize fiat settlement and remittances worldwide. At the same time, a number of crypto enthusiasts think XRP is very centralized and the number of coins held by early investors and founders is scary. Others believe XRP is also an unregistered security and the crypto could have more issues with government regulators about this concern.

Crypto advocates have been concerned because regulators like the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could retroactively penalize the project’s creators. Despite these fears, most XRP supporters still think that XRP will continue to remain one of the top digital assets as far as valuation and performance are concerned. So far XRP has remained a silent behemoth, consistently occupying a top three spot by market cap, despite concerted attempts to dislodge it.

What do you think about XRP? What do you think about the consolidation and stagnant price action in regard to XRP markets? Do you think XRP is poised for a breakout? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Coin Metrics, Markets.Bitcoin.com, Coinlib.io, Coindesk, Fair Use, and Pixabay.

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