2024 marked the year of resurgence for cryptocurrencies. After experiencing standard volatility for much of the year, the entire market began to skyrocket after Donald Trump claimed victory in the U.S. presidential elections. Newer narratives like Solana meme coins, real world assets, and AI agents showed great promise while legacy tokens in DeFi also demonstrated renewed potential. Bitcoin passed the $100,000 milestone in December. However, perhaps no other major token symbolized resurgence more than Ripple (XRP), which saw a gain of nearly 250% in 2024 - double that of Bitcoin’s 117% annual growth. Ripple is on a bonafide redemption arc as it’s shot past its highest price back in the 2021 bull market. Such bullish sentiment can be attributed to many factors, including legal victories and strong social media presence. While the past two months have been amazing for XRP holders, it will be interesting to analyze whether the token will continue in an upward trajectory for 2025 or suffer a major correction.
What is Ripple: Overview of XRP
Ripple is a blockchain-powered digital payment company that has developed a network and protocol using its native crypto token XRP. The company’s primary focus is on leveraging the blockchain to serve as a payment settlement system, asset exchange, and remittance platform. Similar to how the SWIFT network is currently used by banks and financial institutions for international money and security transfers across currencies.
Ripple’s solutions act as a temporary global settlement layer, facilitating seamless transactions for both businesses and individuals. What’s unique about XRP relative to many other major layer 1 cryptocurrencies is that it doesn't position itself as an alternative to traditional currencies. Instead, XRP functions as a bridge currency, facilitating global transactions between various units of value, such as cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and fiat currencies like the Dollar or Yen. Ripple collaborates closely with banks and financial institutions, aiming to create a network capable of processing a high volume of transactions at rapid speeds. The organization targets enterprise users such as large banks, remittance services, and payment providers.
Why has Ripple been outperforming?
Regulatory Factors: In 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused Ripple of raising over $1.3 billion in 2013 through the sale of XRP in an unregistered securities offering to investors. Ripple has been in a legal battle with the SEC since. However, in August 2024, Ripple achieved a significant legal victory when a court ruled that XRP is not classified as a security when traded on public exchanges. While the company was required to pay a $125 million fine for selling XRP directly to institutional investors, this decision was still generally viewed as a victory and boosted investor confidence in XRP. With previous SEC Chair Gary Gensler stepping down on January 20, 2025 which aligns with Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, community sentiment is positive for a more crypto-friendly regulatory landscape.
Institutional Interest: Ripple has focused on developing its XRP Ledger (XRPL) product to enable faster and more cost-effective cross-border payments. This strategy has resulted in increased adoption by banks and payment providers. Recently, following the approval and success of ETFs for both Bitcoin and Ethereum, there has been a push to introduce a spot XRP ETF). While nothing is certain, major financial firms are already showing interest, and if the ETF is approved, it would provide institutions with a more convenient way to invest in XRP.
Market Sentiment and Speculation: In early December 2024, rumors were swirling that president-elect Trump would appoint a “crypto tsar” as advisory personnel to his White House staff. One of the potential candidates that the community speculated on was Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of Ripple, which undoubtedly helped bullish sentiment. Furthermore, Tiktok and X influencers were instrumental in pushing XRP to their audiences during the December pump.
XRP Outlook in 2025
2024 was a marquee year for Ripple, but 2025 might be even better if the project can ride out its momentum. For example, there are reports that nearly 80% of banks in Japan are considering to integrate XRP in some way into their systems by 2025. Yoshitaka Kitao, the CEO of SBI Group which is a leading Japanese financial services company, has shown strong support for XRP and its ability to drive growth in international remittances.
In addition to more institutional partnerships, Ripple could benefit from a more lax regulatory framework for crypto in general, especially with the incoming Trump administration’s apparent support for utility crypto projects. Ripple’s newly released stablecoin RLUSD has seen over 100% growth in trading volume within weeks after launch, signaling the project team’s ability to deliver on add-on technologies. However, Ripple still faces uncertainty as its apparent court victory against the SEC in 2024 is being appealed by the governing body and reviewed again in January 2025. Some investors believe that the token’s late run in 2024 must entail a correction in 2025 as more traders decide to take profit. Overall, XRP performance in 2025 could come down to the power of its retail investor community and trajectory of the crypto industry in general.
