It certainly has been an eventful month for the Ripple (XRP) price. After climbing as high as US$1.08 per token last week, it is now trading 26.5% lower at 79.3 U.S. cents according to Coin Market Cap.
What has been happening in the world of Ripple?
The main catalyst for this decline has been general weakness in the cryptocurrency market and in bitcoin (BTC) in particular.
Unfortunately for holders of Ripple's XRP, it tends to move higher or lower with the bitcoin price. So with bitcoin being weighed down by negative sentiment relating to the "Tokyo Whale", the suspension of two Japanese exchanges, and tightening regulations in the United States, XRP has also suffered.
Asides from this, the company behind XRP, Ripple Labs, was dealt a blow recently when it lost its home-court advantage in a dispute with rival R3 Holdco over ownership of XRP which at one point was worth more than US$16 billion.
According to Bloomberg, the San Francisco-based Ripple Labs had argued that it would face "irreparable injury" if it were to battle on R3 Holdco's home turf in New York. Which now looks likely to be the case.
The case is related to claims by R3 Holdco that Ripple illegally refused to honour an agreement to hand over 5 billion of its XRP.
It isn't all doom and gloom, though, and there have been a few positive developments.
Last month global money exchange giant Western Union confirmed that it was testing Ripple's technology in its money transfers. I think this is a big win for the cryptocurrency and demonstrates that it has a use in the mainstream.
Further to this, overnight TechCrunch reported that Ripple Labs is looking to build on this by investing in startups that could offer alternative uses for its XRP.
One startup that caught the eye of the company in January was Omni. Ripple led a $25 million investment round in the San Francisco-based provider of storage and rental services for goods. As part of the investment Omni has agreed to introduce XRP within its service.
What next for Ripple and XRP?
If crypto markets rebound then I believe Ripple could bounce back stronger than bitcoin, Ethereum (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC) due to its steep decline. This could potentially take it back above the US$1.00 mark again.
But with sentiment particularly weak at the moment, the industry may need a major catalyst to do this. Time will tell whether one eventuates.
