After a record high in December, the cryptocurrency market crashed across the board. However, these virtual coins are starting to bounce back, and experts believe that Ripple’s XRP could potentially be the next Bitcoin.

When the average person thinks of cryptocurrency, the first name that comes to mind is Bitcoin. As one of the first cryptocurrencies to gain any widespread traction, it has quickly ballooned to be a significant player in the investment scene. However, in the past year or two, there were around one hundred cryptocurrencies that all started to make their climb – offering similar yet slightly different takes on this new form of investment.

Until recently, no one believed that Ripple’s XRP – which was originally trading for less than a dollar – could rival Bitcoin, but with a market cap that’s continually growing, some experts believe that Ripple could unseat this major player and become the king of cryptocurrency.

As always, it’s important to take any expert’s analysis with a grain of salt. While traditional investments may be a little easier to predict in terms of the rise and fall of value, currencies like Ripple’s XRP and Bitcoin are much more volatile just due to the way that they’re designed. As an asset with value based solely on speculation, Ripple’s XRP price can vary massively from week to week – or even day to day. The truth is that it’s next to impossible to accurately predict where Ripple’s XRP price could be in the next year, but the general trajectory of all cryptocurrencies, when compared to next year, seems to be trending upwards.

Despite the recent crash near the beginning of 2018, the majority of cryptocurrencies are still trading at a value that is far higher than we saw back at the same time in 2017. The fact that the Bitcoin price dropped more than 50% and still managed to be significantly higher than its value at the beginning of 2017 is a testament to just how out of control the growth of these
investments can become.