Down by more than 10% at the end of the first quarter of 2020, Ripple’s XRP turned out to be the worst-performing altcoin among the top 25 cryptocurrencies.
A recently-published report by Messari shows that the reduction in XRP sales by Ripple has not helped revive the coin’s battered prices.
XRP Performed The Worst In Q1 2020
Of the top 25 cryptocurrencies, save for bitcoin, Ripple’s XRP performed the worst during the first quarter of this year. The cryptocurrency’s price dropped from around $0.1931 on January 1 and closed at $0.1737 on March 31, marking a decline of over 10% throughout the quarter.
Messari, a major blockchain and crypto research firm, pointed out that this poor performance came in spite of the many alliances that Ripple forged during the quarter. The blockchain payments firm partnered with several companies that will use the On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) solution which leverages XRP cryptocurrency.
Messari also observed that the BitMEX exchange launched its very first XRP perpetual swap contract that gave the crypto-asset exposure in one of the most liquid cryptocurrency exchanges in the crypto space.
Regardless, XRP became the worst-performing top-25 altcoin in Q1 2020.
Troubles At Ripple
Ripple has long endured criticism over its XRP sales. The fintech firm, however, dramatically reduced its quarterly sales last year in a bid to maintain a conservative approach.
For instance, Ripple sold 13.1 million XRP in Q4 2019, compared to 66.2 million sold in the third quarter of the same year representing an 80% decrease. The company also paused programmatic sales en masse due to persistent reports of inflated volumes.
Nonetheless, Messari found that these efforts have proved ineffective so far. XRP has continued on a downtrend and remains stuck below its January 2018 all-time high of approximately $3.80.
Messari also cites the comments made by Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse during the first quarter of 2020 where he basically proclaimed that if it were not for the XRP sales, the firm would not be profitable.
Looking forward, the analytics firm argues that the ongoing class-action lawsuit against Ripple regarding whether XRP should be classified as a security or not “will march on for the foreseeable future”.
Ripple’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit was dismissed by Judge Phyllis Hamilton in late-February.
