A prediction on the future of XRP in 2020 is rattling through the cryptosphere.
Mike Novogratz, the CEO of crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital, says he thinks XRP’s performance this year will be similar to 2019. The price of XRP dropped from $0.3529 in January of last year to $0.1912 by the end of 2019, a 45% decrease. In the same time frame, Bitcoin (BTC) surged from $3,782 to $7,172, an 89% increase.
At last week’s LINC 2020 conference in Orlando, Florida, Novogratz blamed XRP’s supply for its lackluster price action last year. Via CoinDesk,
“It did underperform immensely last year. I think it will underperform immensely again this year and it’s just because of the supply…
Ripple the company owns 60 billion of the coins, of the XRP. That’s a lot of it. When I’m buying a stock, if I know [someone’s] selling $10 billion-worth of it at some price, it makes me less excited to buy the stock.”
The total supply of XRP is about 100 billion, compared to Bitcoin’s total supply of 21 million BTC.
Ripple is wasting no time in responding to the comments. CEO Brad Garlinghouse is pointing to XRP’s early gains in 2020.
“XRP has outperformed BTC and the broader crypto market in 2020. XRP is up 44% (19.1 to 27.5) vs BTC’s 33% (7,100 to 9,500) so far this year.”
Ripple’s monthly sales of XRP remain a hot button issue. Ripple has significantly slowed the sale of its holdings in the last two quarters. In the fourth quarter of 2019, the company sold $13.08 million worth of XRP to third parties over-the-counter and sold zero XRP on crypto exchanges.
Despite the kerfuffle, Ripple is Galaxy Digital’s biggest investment. The firm has invested a total of $23.8 million in the San Francisco startup.
