Ripple sold $129M worth of XRP in Q4 of 2018

In Q4 2018, Ripple sold a total of $129.03 million worth of XRP, $40.15 million of which was sold in institutional direct sales by a Ripple subsidiary, XRP Markets Report states. More than 30 new exchanges began listing XRP, making the currency available on over a hundred exchanges. Moreover, nine exchanges, including Binance, listed ripple as a base pair against other digital assets. Interestingly, Q4 noted the lowest average volatility of the cryptocurrency since Q4 2016—5 per cent—paired up with increasing daily volume (average $585.7M).

Each month a billion XRP was released out of escrow, 2.4 billion of which was returned; the remaining 600 million was used to help the ripple ecosystem, especially RippleNet Accelerator Program and Xpring investments.

The report cautions against stablecoins since they are “backed by a single entity, as compared to decentralised digital assets,” the report says. It gives examples of Basis which has recently shut down because of the regulatory concerns, and it had to return the majority of the raised funding. However, given that Ripple holds 60 per cent of the XRP supply, the criticism falls short. The report explains, “Stablecoins can introduce counterparty risk and trust back into the system and have the potential to undermine the entire thesis behind blockchains and digital assets.”