Ripple’s (XRP) Q4 2018 Report Showcases Institutional Interest in 2018

The Ripple team has released a new report detailing the sales of its XRP tokens and the level of institutional investment participation in 2018.

The Q4 2018 report offers a lot of interesting tidbits of information, including growth in average daily volumes of XRP trading and the percentage of Q4 sales with respect to the global XRP volume.

Q4’s total sales amounted to $129 million, which is roughly a quarter of 2018’s impressive total sales of $535 million. $40 million of this Q4 sale was direct sales to institutional investors, which is a dip from Q3’s institutional sales of $93 million.

To this, the team commented,

In Q4, we saw an overall settling of XRP volatility compared to quarters’ past. XRP’s volatility of daily returns was 5 percent – the lowest quarterly average since Q4 2016. Conversely, we saw the average daily volume for XRP increase substantially. The average XRP daily volume was $595.7M – the highest quarterly average since Q1 2018. In addition, towards the latter part of Q4, XRP’s correlation with top digital assets returned to the elevated levels seen through the end of Q1 2018 through early Q3 2018.

Direct institutional sales for the whole of 2018 amount to $171 million. This makes the case for a much-increased interest by institutional investors in digital assets – something that Morgan Stanley and others have concurred with.

Morgan Stanley has recognized digital assets as an emerging asset class, and its detailed report noted how they have been recognized as a hedge against traditional markets, a store of value, and a fundraising mechanism. Most institutional investment also stems from the US, with China and the UK following at some distance behind.

Further on, the team makes remarks against stablecoins – a particular type of token that has seen a remarkable rise in adoption in 2018. The Gemini exchange, backed by the Winklevoss twins, launched its own stablecoin in 2018, the Gemini Dollar, and Circle-Coinbase effort USD Coin is another prominent stablecoin entrant – apart from the well-known Tether and Dai.

Over 30 Exchanges Added XRP in Q4 2018

XRP is already listed on several dozen exchanges, but its liquidity continues to rise as Q4 2018 saw the token listed on more than 30 new exchanges, according to the team. This brings the total number of exchanges the token is listed on to over 100. The team also notes how the XRP token has been paired against other assets in 9 exchanges, with Binance pairing it against TRON (TRX) and Zcoin (ZXC).

Ripple has had an excellent 2018 and has started 2019 off very well. More partners continue to join RippleNet, and CEO Brad Garlinghouse expects Ripple to grow.