Since the rebound of the crypto market, Ripple is the only top ten cryptocurrency that has experienced negative growth.

Despite the remarkable recovery in the cryptocurrency market since the low point of 2018, one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization shows no signs of bouncing back. As of now, Ripple remains the only cryptocurrency among the top 10 by market capitalization this year to exhibit negative growth.

Although Ripple has seen its market value depreciate by about $3 billion this year, a 23% drop, the good news is that it remains the third largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin and Ethereum, with a market value more than twice that of the fourth-ranked Bitcoin Cash.

XRP

Investors often blame "whales" for poor performance, but a report points out that much of Ripple's dismal performance in 2019 can be attributed to Ripple's founder Brad Garlinghouse.

The founder and payment service provider hold about 75% of Ripple tokens. Furthermore, according to a report by crypto research firm Coin Metrics, former co-founder of Ripple Jed McCaleb who has left Ripple, sells 500,000 XRP tokens to the market every day.

In the past three quarters, Ripple's token sales have continued to rise, putting significant pressure on the token price. As reported by ABM, Ripple releases 1 billion tokens from its official escrow account every month, claiming the proceeds from these sales will be used to "support the improvement of the XRP ecosystem."

In response to these accusations, Ripple officials stated:

The "transaction volume and inflation rate" of Ripple token sales are lower than that of Bitcoin or Ethereum, and they have plans to reduce transaction volume in the next quarter.

However, users seem to be unwilling to accept this explanation. Since August 5th, over 2,213 people have launched an online petition on Change.org titled "Stop Ripple dumping."

Transparency in Supply Not Maintained

In 2017, Ripple created an escrow account holding 55 billion XRP tokens, releasing 1 billion tokens from the escrow each month, and selling only to institutional buyers.

However, this is disputed by Coin Metrics co-founder Nic Carter. He pointed out that the data in the report does not match the actual sales of XRP for at least two quarters.

Carter believes:

The escrow terms were never clear from the beginning, and no one can determine exactly how much XRP has been sold, which is in stark contrast to Bitcoin, with its publicly and unalterably clear supply.

Researcher Messari Eric Turner also stated:

In many ways, Ripple has accelerated its sales pace in the market this year, with $2.515 billion in the second quarter, almost 50% higher than the $1.694 billion in the first quarter.

In addition to the controversies mentioned above, if Facebook's Libra project is successfully launched, it will become a direct competitor to Ripple, potentially greatly reducing the demand for Ripple's "cross-border payment network."

Further Reading

• Huobi's wallet to support MakerDAO tokens
• Travel platform Travelport partners with IBM on blockchain

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