Ripple Annual Report Q1--- XRP sales up 83 percent
The annual report for the first quarter of 2018 was published yesterday on Ripple's corporate blog. It states that Ripple sold 167.7 million XRP in the first quarter of 2018, an increase of 83 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2017.
The annual report further states that XRP's direct sales totaled $ 16.6 million. This represents a decrease of 17 percent compared to the previous quarter. By contrast, "programmatic" sales more than doubled from $ 71.5 million to $ 151.1 million.
According to David Schwartz, Ripple's chief cryptographer, "programmatic" sales are third-party sales using ripple. As a rule, these should be the sales of crypto currency exchanges.
As Schwartz notes, Ripple has no direct control over these sales and can not quickly adjust their timing. As such, he also confirms that hype of any kind drives the XRP exchange volume, increasing the amount of programmatic sales Ripple makes.
The total share of the crypto currency market increased in the first quarter from 5.3 percent at the end of 2017 to 6.9 percent at the end of March. In this regard, Ripple states in the report (freely translated):
While the total market capitalization of all digital assets was the same on November 24, 2017 and March 31, 2018, XRP's share of that market capitalization doubled from 3.56 percent to 7.57 percent - a continuation of a trend that first began in 2017 started.
In the report, Ripple also considers the decline in the price of XRP. This reflects the trend of the entire cryptocurrency market. XRP's price rose from a low of $ 0.25 in early December to a high of $ 3.84 at the end of December. Q1 started at $ 1.91 in the first quarter and ended at $ 0.51, down 73 percent.
The Ripple report also looks at the negative impact of regulatory action along with uncertainty about the future.
Among other things, the topics South Korea, CFTC and the summons of Tether and Bitfinex, the Coincheck Hack and the deliberations of the G20 summit of finance ministers are addressed. However, the report does not specifically address Ripple's own regulatory issues but the general impact on the market. The question of whether Ripple is a security will not be discussed.