Ripple, and its XRP digital token, have weathered the recent bitcoin and cryptocurrency storm better than many others, bolstered by XRP’s huge gains earlier in the year.
But ripple, a common name for XRP, has still struggled amidst an almost year-long crypto rout that has wiped more than $700 billion from the total cryptocurrency market capitalization over the course of 2018—despite a raft of banks and financial services companies signing up to Ripple.
Now, Ripple’s chief technology officer David Schwartz has warned cryptocurrency and blockchain technology need to be improved before the dream of cryptocurrency mass adoption becomes a reality.
Ripple (XRP), bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies are thought of both as a medium of exchange and a store of value. However, the 2017 bitcoin (BTC) bull run, which saw the price of bitcoin explode from under $1,000 to almost $20,000 in fewer than 12 months, pulling most other major cryptocurrencies with it, meant the store of value aspect of many cryptocurrencies far exceeded their use as digital currencies.
The expectation (and subsequent disappointment) that adoption of cryptocurrencies as a tool of exchange would follow the bitcoin bull run has contributed to this year’s sell-off of digital tokens.
XRP is down some 80% from its peak as most major cryptocurrencies readjust after last year’s huge bull run. The ripple price surged to more than $3 last year, up from just $0.006 it began of 2017.
The ripple (XRP) sudden price rise in September failed to hold, with its value dropping again in November.
Some now fear that cryptocurrencies’ current problems of clunky exchanges, high risk and low regulation environments, and pricey fees could put people off for good, even if these problems are eventually solved.
“I don’t want the adoption to get ahead of the technology. It took a long time for the internet to get to the point where it was suitable for anybody to use it and you didn’t have to really understand the technology in great detail in order to be able to get it to work,” Schwartz told the Internet History Podcast.