Ripple Leads Cryptocurrencies Lower

Cryptocurrencies led by real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system Ripple’s XRP fell in trading Monday (Jan. 8) as investors bet its stock surge was a bubble.

According to a report in CNBC, Ripple was down 10 percent while bitcoin fell 7.6 percent, and lifecoin dropped 6.4 percent. Ethereum bucked the declining trend Monday trading up 4.7 percent, however. While Ripple was soaring in trading in 2017, concerns have been mounting recently that it could be a bubble pressuring it and other cryptocurrencies.

“The reason ripple is surging so much is it’s a bubble,” said Erik Voorhees, CEO of digital asset exchange ShapeShift. “Testing crypto with banks doesn’t make sense. The whole idea of crypto is you don’t need banks.”

Last week, shares of Ripple were volatile on the heels of some negative rumors and news. Ripple News reported that Western Union was gearing up to embrace Ripple’s blockchain technology which made supporters of the cryptocurrency happy. Citing an unnamed source, the reported noted Western Union could adopt the XRP technology at some point in 2018.

The comments came as a public feud broke out on Twitter following a New York Times article that was critical of Ripple technology. Ripple countered the story in a tweet, saying three of the top five money transfer companies plan to use XRP in payment flows this year. Ripple News noted Western Union joined a pilot program with Ripple Labs two years ago.

Separately, Forbes reported that the price of Ripple’s cryptocurrency XRP declined more than 25 percent last week after Coinbase said it would not be offering the cryptocurrency on its exchange, ending one rumor that had been swirling.

“As of the date of this statement, we have made no decision to add additional assets to either GDAX or Coinbase,” Coinbase said in a statement. “Any statement to the contrary is untrue and not authorized by the company.”