- Punters are losing faith in XRP’s chances of breaking records.
- Bearish predictions come as Ripple celebrates several wins.
- Trump’s trade war has put the pressure on risk-on assets like cryptocurrencies.
XRP’s price won’t break its old record in April.
That’s according to a bet on Polymarket where bettors only give the Ripple-linked cryptocurrency a 4% chance of beating its 2018 all-time high of $3.40.
XRP traded at $2.17 at the time of writing.
Punters also put the chances of it recapturing the $2.50 price seen at the beginning of March at 50%. Some 64% bet the price could fall as low as $1.90.
The prediction market echoes a similar bet where punters give XRP’s price a slim chance of hitting another record by July 1.
The news comes as XRP’s price has lost 35% of its value since January as US President Donald Trump’s trade war weighs heavily on markets more broadly.
Donald Trump
XRP should be ripping right now.
Ripple, the company that developed the cryptocurrency to facilitate cross-border payments, has enjoyed a flurry of good news this year.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has dropped its long-running lawsuit against Ripple, Trump has hinted that he’d like to include XRP in a national crypto stockpile, and the president’s promises to end the Biden era’s strict policing of the sector seem on the cusp of becoming a reality.
Elsewhere, market watchers expect the SEC to soon approve XRP exchange-traded funds, and crypto exchange Gemini has unveiled a credit card that allows customers to earn XRP when they use it.
Yet punters lack the confidence that XRP will be able to ride the wave of good news and break records, at least on this side of the year.
Crypto washout
XRP isn’t alone in floundering.
The overall crypto market has lost 28% of its value since Trump’s inauguration and is worth just under $2.8 trillion.
And it’s not just crypto — stock markets have felt the sting too. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 are down 10% and 7%, respectively, since January 20.
Trump’s unpredictable trade war has been blamed for the wipeout. His constantly changing trade policies — which Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly described as a “psychodrama” — have rattled markets by creating a lot of uncertainty.
“This has prompted investors to pull back from risk-on assets, with crypto following the broader retreat in equities,” said Mena Theodorou, co-founder of crypto exchange Coinstash.
Crypto market movers
- Bitcoin is up 2.5% over the past 24 hours to trade at $84,172.
- Ethereum is up 3.8% to trade at $1,873.
What we’re reading
- Why BlackRock CEO Larry Fink warns Bitcoin risks overtaking the US dollar — DL News
- The ‘iTunes Moment’ for banking? — Milk Road
- What Signalgate Says About Crypto’s Problem With Privacy — Unchained
- How WikiFX Uses Copyright Takedown Complaints to Bury Criticism — Scamurai
- Trump sons launch unusual Bitcoin mining deal: ‘I don’t fully understand the rationale’ — DL News
Eric Johansson is DL News’ News Editor. Got a tip? Email at eric@dlnews.com.
