Traders just valued XRP's worth at $120 billion

I love XRP, it has an application and a plan. It is a very solid idea backed by solid players such as former Fed chairmen Ben Bernanke. It may well become the technology if not currency of choice for intra-bank transfers. It may replace bitcoin. But does that mean that a market cap of $120 billion US dollars is justifiable at this point in time? Maybe it is?

Ripple has issued a total of 100 billion XRP en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_(payment_protocol) of which it is releasing a full billion to the market each month. At current market appreciations XRPUSD that means that $1.2bn worth of XRP enters the market each month. That is a fantastic sum. Now as I write this, XRP is valued at $1.2 each and that means that its market cap is $120bn and the company that still holds 61bn XRP is valued at $73.2 billion, more than SBUX , more than CHXEUR:UBSGZ (one of the largest swiss banks), more than NYSE:TWX. And if trends continue over the next few hours, worth more than BWM, AMEX and Goldman Sachs!

I was part of a .com during the late 1990s volatile internet boom and bust and that was nothing compared to this. I don't disagree that ripple could potentially be worth more than such long lived world class companies but at this time, such a valuation is irrational. That doesn't mean I don't hold this coin, because of market appreciation, but does mean that, much like in the late 1990s, some of these assets are overpriced and some will not deliver and fail.

My advice for XRP certainly still is to hold: coinbase and GDAX probably will add it to their index, adding even more interest, but please compare the valuation of cryptotokens and currencies to actual company market caps. If XRP would be valued at over $7.2 it would be more valuable than Apple, the most valuable company according to market cap today.

I'm very much looking forward to a debate on this, its vital to have one. Cryptotokens will rule the 2020s and beyond, which ones will make it also is up to us, players in the markets.

Comment:

I still don't understand the valuation of, nor XRP itself. It now is at over $2.55 which means that the total volume of XRP (there are 100 billion of them) is worth US$255bn - equivalent to the market cap of the world's 15th most valuable company. Larger than the GDP of Finland, a world class economy. Yes GDP and this coin's appreciation are different animals but the comparison here is one of sheer scale. A quarter of a trillion US$ is immense regardless of qualifications.

From what I have read, XRP is not being used for intra-bank transfers. What some banks use is the Ripple Protocol. XRP may currently be used to trade currencies that have no regular trading pairs, but it's difficult to find independent verification that this is so and if so, at what volumes. Typically such trades are being done with USD as intermediary and there's no real need to disrupt that trade. Nor to have an intermediary that is this volatile.

The Ripple protocol is what is valuable to banks, they may or may not embrace it. It's valuable to move funds: banks need a cryptocoin that is fully pegged to the currency that is being moved between accounts. Ripple's protocol does, but XRP certainly does not fill that need. XRP simply is far too volatile even within the 4 second period that a transfer takes. XRP really is a proof of concept that has turned into a non-voting stock in the ripple company, isn't it? Is that all it is?

Regardless of all this, the markets have bought into XRP and with several exchanges rumored to add it (rumors that include Coinbase), the outlook continues to be bullish and many technical analysts on tradingview.com have no trouble predicting that i'll head over $4 in the short term. Like most traders I hold some in anticipation of its continued growth.

What Ripple should do is to quickly turn that value into a war cheast to buy real assets and link the XRP coin to that value.