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Dear XRPChat, As the Ripple Q4Markets Report is imminent, I'd like to present an update to my previous analysis of ripple sales (in thread linked here) With a focus this time, on Q4 sales from 2018-10-01 to 2018-12-31. Part I The previous findings were that Ripple has been selling approximately 3% of daily volume and this trend appears to have continued without any significant change. I shall confine my plots to the period 2018-04-01 (2018-Q2) onwards, as this appears to be a time when a strategy shift occurred in the xrp sales and data appears consistent after this time. The up-to-date plot of daily sales (from the account previously referred to as RP2) to tagged (presumed to be exchange) accounts is and the correlation to daily volume is Which maintains the finding that around 1/35 = ~3% of daily volume is being sold off with the previous days volume (shift =1day) used as the reference. NB. Using the time period 2018-04-01 from cryptocompare.com to today as reference. I had previously hypothesized that ripple are selling xrp not only from their warchest of escrowed tokens, but also from founders/staff accounts since the declared sales of xrp in the Q2/Q3 reports do not tally with the summed totals I found in sales from RP2. This seems entirely reasonable and I decided to investigate this further. Two further pieces of information are useful. The first is that as pointed out in a recent comment by hodor - in the Q3 report, ripple state that their programmatic sales are 0.17% of market total (and total sales 0.43%). This is quite a significant difference from the 3% sales I have calculated. Either Ripple are using a different source of volume figures for their data, or I am not looking at the right numbers/wallets. Perhaps if I take only a subset of the 3% sales, they will match the numbers reported by ripple. In the previous analysis thread, I did not manage to find a good match between ripple's declared figures and the ones I presented - to try to improve this, I looked at the wallets that supply RP2 with the xrp that is sold daily. There are 9 of them, and I have labelled them as RD1, RD2, ... RD9 (for Ripple Daily 1-9). The payments from April until now are It's clear that they follow a similar pattern to the overall sales in the earlier plot since these are just the payments into the RP2 account that are then distributed to exchanges. Perhaps the 9 accounts represent different sources of xrp that correspond to warchest/founders/charity/other wallets that contribute to daily sales. This is a breakdown of the payments from the 9 into RP2 for recent quarters And let us remind ourselves of the ripple sales as published in the quarterly reports We are interested in 2018 Q2/Q3 programmatic sales and if any of the accounts RD1-9 match the figures quoted. The answer is "no", but perhaps several of the accounts together combined match the figures we are looking for. Summing RD1 RD2 RD3 RD9 gives a quite close result for Q2/Q3, here are the numbers The totals are 57.56 and 66.71 compared to 56.55 and 65.27. Those numbers are just 1.7% and 2.2% out for Q2 and Q3 respectively. Perhaps those are the accounts that are feeding the programmatic sales. If that is a correct assumption, then 2018-Q4 programmatic sales should be $83.47m. Allowing for +/-2.5% we would have a range of $81.4m to $85.6m. Actually, I suspect the number will be a little less because RD1,RD2,R3 look like good candidates, but why add RD9 in Q3 which had zero sales prior to then. Removing RD9 from the sum increases the error and reduces the total so I would not be surprised if the figure was a little lower. But I'll stick to $83.5m as a prediction for Q4 sales. One thing that troubles me is that the figures I get for programmatic sales using RD1,2,3,9 amounts to 1/57.33 = 0.1744 or 1.7% of the volume (which is about right, since we are only including half the accounts in our programmatic sales estimate that was ~3%). But in the Ripple Q3 report, they state that they sold only 0.17% of volume programmatically. And based on the figures presented in the report, it looks as though the volume data they are using is much higher than that sourced by myself, so I shall revisit these figures with better volume data. The average daily volume from their data is >$400M daily, which seems about right. It may be that the /v2/network/external_markets API can provide figures that improve the correlations with sales and give a better match to the %volume figures. Part II I said earlier that two further pieces of information were useful. One was the sales % numbers in the markets report, the second is that we do have extra data that might help us identify direct sales as well as programmatic ones. The extra data is the xrp distribution figures. Ripple provide data on how much xrp is in existence, how much is distributed/undistributed and escrowed. If we know how much xrp there is in April 2018 and we know how much is sold, escrowed and destroyed etc, then whatever remains in the difference between distributed and undistributed must be xrp that ripple has either loaned out or sold OTC. If it is undistributed, then it is part of the monthly escrow release but still sitting in a ripple wallet - if it is distributed, then it has been 'used' in some capacity. Lets have a look at the raw distribution data, here I've added 3 columns, 'remains' is just a sanity check to make sure that the totals are consistent (total-(escrowed+dist+undist)) and is zero or occasionally 1 due to roundoff errors. burned is the change in total each month and diff is the change in distributed. The other columns are as read from https://data.ripple.com/v2/network/xrp_distribution date distributed escrowed total undistributed remains burned diff 2018-01-07 39029058672 54000000024 99992855589 6963796893 0 NaN NaN 2018-01-14 39029001738 54000000024 99992777885 6963776123 0 77704.0 -56934.0 2018-01-21 39029011222 54000000024 99992725510 6963714263 1 52375.0 9484.0 2018-01-28 39032356092 54000000024 99992664799 6960308683 0 60711.0 3344870.0 2018-02-04 39094802192 53900000024 99992622540 6997820324 0 42259.0 62446100.0 etc etc ... when plotted the data for 2018 looks like the following graph. Note that we see drops in distributed XRP when it is placed in escrow (or potentially when large amounts are burned, but this is very small since the cap on transaction fees was introduced after a user lost 100k+ xrp in accidental fees). If we resample the distribution data to end of month totals, subtract the total distributed at the start of the period (giving zero initial distribution at the start of April 1st 2018, = start of Q2), then subtracting what we believe has been sold (using the figures we know from part I above) for each month, then the left over should be the amount that has been distributed by ripple, but not declared as part of programmatic sales. It should be 'direct sales' + xrp distribution from 'any other business' (sch as incentivisation of market makers and loans of xrp etc). The next graph shows the distributed xrp starting at zero on 1st April, with monthly and quarterly final amounts alongside. Note that as the distribution data is only published weekly, there can be big differences between the month end resampled and original data. For example, the data for the first week of Dec 2018 is 500m higher than the previous entry during the last week of Nov, and so the monthly Nov fig is much lower than the true data. Fortunately no big differences exist at quarterly boundaries so we don't need to make any adjustments to the data or our sampling. Previously we showed the quarterly sales from RD1,2,3,9 in $$$, the sales in terms of xrp tokens are so we should subtract those from the quarterly distribution numbers which are -------------------- Quarterly distribution -------------------- date distributed(since start Q2) 2018-06-30 146046852 2018-09-30 881583920 2018-12-31 1924354618 which gives Q2 65m, Q3 583.7m, Q4 1042.7m as the unaccounted for XRP for the 3 quarters we are interested in. Ripple have told us that in Q2 their direct sales were $16.87m - but we do not know what price they were sold at. The best we can do is use a flat rate based on the sales we do know about. In Q2 we found 81m xrp sold for $57.56m so we estimate that 23.7m xrp would have sold for $16.87m. This gives us (if we repeat the process for Q3) Q2 programmatic = 81m, direct = 23.7m, mystery remainder = 41.3m xrp Q3 programmatic = 151.8m, direct = 221.1m, mystery remainder = 583.7-221.1 = 362m xrp for Q4 we have Q4 programmatic = 196.3m, unaccounted for 866.5m of which some is going to be direct sales and some is unaccounted for. I had hoped that by conducting this little experiment, I would be able to recover the direct sales numbers from ripple, but unfortunately the numbers don't add up. There is still xrp being released that is unaccounted for. In Q2, it's 41m xrp, in Q3 it jumps to 362m and in Q4 we do not know the direct sales figures yet, but it could be anywhere from 0-866m xrp which would translate into a very large figure in $$$. Probably some of the xrp bound to the R3 settlement is included in this number, and probably the direct sales for Q4 will be very high (I'd guess over $100m). We will know soon and I will update my calculations when the Q4 report is released. Conclusion. TL;DR : My best guess for Q4 figures is between $81m and $86m for programmatic sales, over $100m for direct sales and a ton of xrp being loaned out, or distributed as part of other agreements. As usual, all my numbers are guesswork and as soon as I click send, I'll find loads of mistakes, please consider this analysis as a simple diversion from other mundane aspects of life. edit : deleted an image pasted by accident and fixed some typos

not a 100% word by word - i wrote it down by listening, but i like that dialogue between Brad and Joseph Lubin (Ethereum ConsenSys) @ about 24 min mark Brad: "the XRP Ledger is more decentralized than mining-based solutions (because of the nature of PoW)..." Joseph Lubin (Ethereum): "... talking about decentralized... but you do sell XRP regulary right...?" Brad: "... we're transparent about it... how much do you sell?" Joseph Lubin: "Ehm..." Brad: "...transparency and maturity in this market are critical...” Joseph: "sure" Brad: "there are many other ecosystems not being transparent...no one knows what happens in those ecosystems..." Joseph: "...but they are decentralized about the ownership of the token..." Brad: " ...if its a mining-based protocol, then centralization is based upon mining control, not ownership..." Joseph: ehm one small aspect of the governance of the ecosystem could be considered centralized if you talk about the mining aspect... sure" silence Moderator to Joseph: "Joe it's been said that you are one of the biggest ethereum holders... how do you manage treasury in consensys..." Joseph: "(laughs) ehm... i guess no comment..." ..."we manage our treasury like a company would manage it`s treasury..." Brad (jumps in): "...i find it interesting that ripple gets attacked for being transparent... actually the next xrp market report will come out sometime later in this week... but, because we share that information we get attacked for it while other platforms don't share that information and so they are insulated from the same critiques... i think in the dictionary it's called hypocrisy... i'm not 100% sure, but it's close" Joseph: "...ehm we are a private company..." Brad (jumps in again): "Ripple is a private company too"

This is a talk from November's IMF event. Ryan Zagone is the Director of Regulatory Relations in Ripple and he literary NAILED it!

Blog URL: https://xrpcommunity.blog/the-rise-of-digital-assets-in-2019/ Digital assets will rise this year. In today's blog I talk about market cycles and highlight the major XRP news stories in the cryptosphere! 𝐑𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬: Euro Exim Bank releases a commercial; Mercury FX and Catalyst clarify their xRapid implementation; Coins.ph is acquired by a Go-Jek, a massive technology start-up; UST Global claims they can implement an end-to-end Ripple payment solution; and Ryan Zagone communicates what's needed from US regulation at Fintech Week in Washington DC. 𝐂𝐨𝐢𝐥 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬: Coil has now issued invitations for everybody on their waitlist; and Ben Sharafian publishes a blog that details a change in technological direction for Coil. 𝐗𝐑𝐏 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬: Thomas Silkjær targets crypto criminals preying on XRP fans; Verso Exchange may use Ripple tech to integrate with banks; Bitrue expands its XRP base pairings; BitPoint opens shop in Panama, listing XRP; Coinfield's CEO likes using XRP as a base currency; @LeoHadjiloizou (Twitter avatar) publishes Ripple's escrow details on his website, along with all 864 XRP markets worldwide; and Denario Research publishes his final installment in the 'XRP Telegram Bot' series of videos. I hope you enjoy the read: Please feel free to share my blog with a friend or share it on any other platform - and thanks for doing so! My blog announcement links on other platforms: Twitter Reddit r/Ripple Reddit r/CryptoCurrency Reddit r/CryptoMarkets Reddit r/xrp Reddit r/RippleTalk Reddit r/alternativecoin Bitcointalk - alt coin sub forum Bitcointalk - XRP speculation thread

Blog URL: https://xrpcommunity.blog/xrp-by-the-numbers-2/ If you're a 'numbers person,' you are in luck: Today's blog is all about the key statistics of XRP! I hope you enjoy the read: Please feel free to share my blog with a friend or share it on any other platform - and thanks for doing so! My blog announcement links on other platforms: Twitter Reddit r/Ripple Reddit r/CryptoCurrency Reddit r/CryptoMarkets Reddit r/xrp Reddit r/RippleTalk Reddit r/alternativecoin Bitcointalk - alt coin sub forum Bitcointalk - XRP speculation thread

I’m suggesting this possibility based on the timing of all the regs coming through at similar times... Thailand: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=newssearch&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwj8kqzH_vXfAhWIdN8KHQ_hATMQzPwBegQIARAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ccn.com%2Fnewsflash-thailands-finance-ministry-grants-licenses-to-three-crypto-exchanges%2F&psig=AOvVaw0Mqyh-yr0bnCTPjuP8vHrI&ust=1547854787286549 Russia: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=newssearch&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiPl6-dgfbfAhXMmuAKHWwGCbYQzPwBegQIARAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.financemagnates.com%2Fcryptocurrency%2Fregulation%2Frussian-parliament-to-implement-crypto-regulations-in-february%2F&psig=AOvVaw2F6QPA8f2ZP5CYtcEJdtag&ust=1547855504560434 Bahrain and UAE: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.thenational.ae/business/technology/experts-call-for-regulations-to-govern-cryptocurrencies-1.813685 China: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=newssearch&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjhg_fe__XfAhXSm-AKHZZCB5AQzPwBegQIARAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ccn.com%2Fchina-to-implement-regulation-for-blockchain-companies-in-february%2F&psig=AOvVaw1wzu7NrRtL6ODhHj3_DoHK&ust=1547855105182047 India: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=newssearch&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwix0IOPgPbfAhXKmOAKHe4IB1sQzPwBegQIARAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ccn.com%2Findia-could-legalize-cryptocurrency-as-government-panel-mulls-strict-regulations%2F&psig=AOvVaw09zPM441grBpI2kuQYrZEN&ust=1547855206050044 EU: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=newssearch&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiVjOqDgfbfAhVOhuAKHXb-A_QQzPwBegQIARAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcointelegraph.com%2Fnews%2Feuropean-banking-authority-report-urges-steady-approach-to-cryptocurrency-regulation&psig=AOvVaw1rgo9yMbw9HMBjb0XMgfZD&ust=1547855451110130 Israel: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=newssearch&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwje0eikg_bfAhUvmuAKHWr3DUoQzPwBegQIARAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ccn.com%2Fisraels-central-bank-and-other-agencies-seek-public-input-in-crypto-regulation-initiative%2F&psig=AOvVaw3Ajy8U8QKYJlPQz3w2sK2q&ust=1547856057054586 Bermuda: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=newssearch&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjYtNHmg_bfAhVkg-AKHR0pC9sQzPwBegQIARAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcointelegraph.com%2Fnews%2Fbermuda-financial-regulator-releases-draft-regulation-for-crypto-custodial-services&psig=AOvVaw18Oe73NBKDnnqs3A7P2SIE&ust=1547856195083135 Please share if you know of more recent regulatory progress.

Blog URL: https://xrpcommunity.blog/we-must-lead-crypto-out-of-the-dark-ages/ The cryptomarket must leave environmentally-destructive tech behind to grasp its future; this and all the latest market news about XRP in today's blog! 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐫𝐲𝐩𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬: Will the government shutdown delay the introduction of the Token Taxonomy Act in the U.S.? One source says Valentines Day might hold the answer. 𝐑𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬: Brad Garlinghouse participates in a memorable panel discussion at the Davos World Economic Forum; Tsinghua University Institute for Fintech Research is added to the list of UBRI participants; and Ripple publishes the 2018 Quarter 4 XRP Markets Report; 𝐂𝐨𝐢𝐥 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬: Sabine Bertram from Coil creates an application that rewards survey participants with XRP. 𝐗𝐑𝐏 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬: R3 establishes the Corda Network for governance functions, and lands a major win with ING; BTCExa announces a new pairing for XRP; and Freewallet indicates its plans to offer XRP support. I hope you enjoy the read: Please feel free to share my blog with a friend or share it on any other platform - and thanks for doing so! My blog announcement links on other platforms: Twitter Reddit r/Ripple Reddit r/CryptoCurrency Reddit r/CryptoMarkets Reddit r/xrp Reddit r/RippleTalk Reddit r/alternativecoin Bitcointalk - alt coin sub forum Bitcointalk - XRP speculation thread

... and that means the Known Amendments page has been updated. rippled 1.2.0 will introduce (at least) 3 new amendments, which (if enabled following 2 weeks of support from 80+% of validators) introduce transaction processing changes. In this case, the changes are pretty small: fixTakerDryOfferRemoval fixes a bug where dry offers sometimes weren't properly removed when autobridging. Thanks to GitHub user demonstefan for contributing the code that eventually became this amendment! fix1578 makes fill-or-kill offers return a new tecKILLED code (as requested on this very forum) when they're killed. It also makes TrustSet transactions fail when they can't set the NoRipple flag, instead of "succeeding" without changing the flag. Both of these changes are meant to make the transaction engine just a little less tricksy. MultiSignReserve reduces the reserve requirement for signer lists so they occupy less XRP for just sitting there. Stay tuned for more information about the upcoming release and the features in it!

https://www.globalcryptopress.com/2019/01/exclusive-members-of-us-congress-from.html For some perspective, just in the first half of this month (Jan 1st-Jan 15th 2019) cryptocurrency startups raised $160 million. Look at where those funds went - Canadian based companies brought in a hefty $80 million, the Netherlands $10 million, the UK around $5 million... but the USA? Bottom of the list with an embarrassing $100k. Remember, that's just half of 1 month - imagine a full year. That's not the only downside for the United States and it's citizens. Even if a startup in the cryptocurrency space isn't located in US, doing business with someone in the US means they must follow US regulations as well. Not wanting to deal with it, they've ignored the country entirely. Once the birthplace of countless breakthrough technologies, the United States now finds itself being abandoned, and ignored. But there's light at the end of the tunnel. I have now confirmed that the Token Taxonomy Act is on the verge of being introduced in the House, where it will soon begin the process of becoming law. The bill's original authors, Congressmen Warren Davidson (Republican, Ohio) along with Darren Soto (Democrat, Florida) are working together to give it a bipartisan introduction. Speaking directly with Michael Hiles, Congressman Davidson's adviser on the issue and CEO of blockchain solutions company 10XTS, I was able to confirm a target date of February 14th (Valentines day) for the bill to be officially introduced.

Starts @ 2:12:09 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-ktBd9H9mo

When I see comments like this I tend to think we're near the bottom.

This time PoW is going the beating. http://galgitron.net/Post/Proof-of-Not-Working

Very interesting discussion. It is very positive that they agreed to share the stage and even joke about negotiating and co-operation. SWIFT were making some good points (to paraphrase) Banks find the migration costs to Ripple/XRP expensive and want to avoid paying them SWIFT's messaging system is much much faster now they have set up GPI and payments can be tracked better Banks worry about crypto volatility SWIFT's system uses API's but not blockchain which they thinks is still some way out from adoption Banks will survive if they adapt, and they are adapting Crypto has this reputation of being unregulated and dangerous to use because of the criminality Everything is already digital Cost of transactions on SWIFT are already very cheap (2 -3 cents) BG had good counter points Ripple provide a two way messaging system (in my view a killer point, it radically changes the sorts of services you can provide) Speed of transaction makes volality near zero and less than fiat to fiat volatility Ripple is going down the regulated route which actually makes tracking and protecting transactions more secure not less secure SWIFT's talk of an open system is disingenuous because it is their controlled API system owned by SWIFT Blockchain is already here. The video ends prematurely. My impression was that these two companies agree that the world has changed and the future is that both companies will be working together on open platforms on the IoV. SWIFT has the advantage of moving banks cheaply onto a more up to date API only system but Ripple has the advantage of more advanced futuristic technology. If you are a new business you would go with Ripple, if you are an established business you have to make some hard assessments whether to move everything across to block chain now or to do it in stages.

https://twitter.com/mercury_fx_ltd/status/1085915009048145920 1/1 We've made our largest payments across RippleNet using #XRP – 86,633.00 pesos (£3,521.67) from the U.K. to Mexico in seconds. 1/2 UK-based Mustard Foods saved £79.17 and 31 hours on the transaction. 3/3 "As a food production company supplying 500+ restaurants in the UK & Europe, we pay suppliers around the world to get quality ingredients for our customers. Faster, cheaper payments allow us to fulfill orders quickly and grow our business." James Durrant, Commercial Director.

UPDATE: In below is the full video of the panel with better quality. Here is the panel "Let's send the money" LIVE stream between Brad Garlinghouse and the CEO of SWIFT.

bought xrp at the top...

Case Study Italian banks pioneer the use of Corda Enterprise for interbank reconciliation—opening the way to a full production roll-out https://www.r3.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Spunta-Final-copy.pdf

this doesnt mean XRP's price wont go up until five years. although it does mean many people in here wont be invested in XRP anymore because they lost patience, got bored, and sold. once XRP is at $5, we'll hear the same exact complaints when it drops to $4.50 "Whats happening!??????" "I just bought at $5 and now im in the red!?" "Once this thing drops to $3 its all over"

I seriously doubt that would be a problem. Two reasons. First is that many have bailed or DCA’d already. Second is that if there is a run the volume will dwarf any tail-end exiters because there are so many more ways for new folk to get on now. Also there has been more prominence to crypto than ever before (good and bad publicity). Third (I’m cheating... ) is because many of those who are still in and underwater, have had more time to actually understand the fundamentals and may realise there could be much higher returns by holding. Also if there is a bulk run associated with real world usage then the volumes might be significantly boosted beyond just speculation. It all depends on what the trigger is... if it has a component of actual heavy usage then it’s unprecendented and could behave differently than any previous speculation- only runs.

I am not a mathematician by any means, and I'm sure my method may be flawed, but instead of just predicting or guessing a price, I decided to try and project a price based on previous market behavior. Some of the information I have outlined below is superfluous, but I was making it up as I went along and I wasn't sure what information I was going to use/need 23rd March 2017 From: 0.00719 to 0.01101 Increase: 0.00382 (53%) Time span: 1 day Average Increase per day: 0.00382 Consolidation/correction: 6 days. Spike to consolidation ratio: 1:6 30th March 2017 From: 0.01012 to 0.05954 Increase: 0.04942 (583%) Time span: 4 days. Average Increase per day: 0.012355 Consolidation/correction: 25 days. Spike to consolidation ratio: 1:6.25 27th April 2017 From: 0.03270 to 0.36402 Increase: 0.33132 (1113%) Time span: 20 days. Average Increase per day: 0.016566 Consolidation/correction: 207 days. Spike to consolidation ratio: 1:10.35 11th Dec 2017 From: 0.22752 to 3.36000 Increase: 3.13248 (1399%) Time span: 24 days. Average Increase per day: 0.13052 Consolidation/correction: 378 days. Spike to consolidation ratio: 1:15.75 Bull run to bull run length increase 30th March vs 23rd March = 4x 27th April vs 30th March = 5x 11th Dec vs 27th April = 1.2x Next bull run projected 1.5x longer = 36 days. Average increase per day 30th March vs 23rd March = 3.23x 27th April vs 30th March = 1.34x 11th Dec vs 27th April = 7.87x Average = 4.14x Next bull run increase per day, 0.13052 x 4.14 = 0.54122 If the bull run started tomorrow from a base of $0.32 (combining the projected length of the next bull run & increase in average price per day), I predict it would end ( around 36 days later) near 23th Feb @ $19.80.

We don't have figures for dollar value XRP purchases by institutions prior to Q4 2016, however, we can probably assume its fairly negligible to the whole picture (if you multiply the below 2016 figures x4 for instance it doesn't make a lot of difference). Relying on the figures we certainly have, we can see the following has been invested by banks/FI in XRP year over year: 2016: $4.6m 2017: $67.4m 2018: $171.7m Doesn't look too bad. That's $243.7m financial institutions the world over have invested in XRP specifically. A quarter billion dollars? I don't think there is any other crypto currency that can make even remotely a claim such as that. Interesting too, to look back and see this as a percentage of (coinmarketcap's) current "market cap" for XRP: 2016: 0.04% 2017: 0.55% 2018: 1.85% Banks/FI's have been buying up more and more of what's out there, and we know they have stringent sales restrictions when they buy. Assuming no subsequent sales, and conversely, assuming no on-market buys, almost 2% of all XRP supply, or 1 out of every 50 in the wild, may be currently owned by a bank or financial institution. That's kinda cool. Looking quarterly: 2016 Q4: 4.6m 2017 Q1: 6.7m 2017 Q2: 21m 2017 Q3: 19.6m 2017 Q4: 20.1m 2018 Q1: 16.6m 2018 Q2: 16.9m 2018 Q3: 98.0m 2018 Q4: 40.2m What I find interesting about this is what I perceive as possibly 6 months latency on banks/FI's en masse reacting to the bull run of 2017 EOY. Sales were down for the first two quarters of 2018, and only picked up (significantly) in Q3. Another way to look at it is we can't necessarily draw too much useful information from what the market's doing versus institutional sales - they may not have much in common, or if they do, there may be significant and unknown delays involved, undermining usefulness. Another way to look at the last quarter is that its the second highest quarter XRP's had in terms of institutional sales, and almost twice the size of third place. To me its too early to draw a conclusion regarding the drop in Q4. It could be an ordinary fluctuation - eg, if we had 5 years worth of figures would we always see a drop in Q4? (Even something as simple as holidays?) But on the whole, I think the report was pretty low-standard. Not in terms of numbers, but in terms of style and content. I looked forward to Miguel Vias' lucid market insights into the crypto space, his play-by-play recaps of pivotal moments from the quarter, and the many charts - some of which would have taken some effort to prepare. This Q4 2018 report is much lighter, low on content, and doesn't even bear his name. It's a shame, but perhaps it indicates he's been busy doing more important things, which I guess could be a positive.

This analysis examines four of the major criticisms of XRP: 1) US government regulatory threat 2) Lack of market adoption by financial institutions for cross-border remittance 3) Competition from Swift, the incumbent 4) Technological risk associated with the Ripple Protocol Consensus Algorithm (RPCA) Using an empirical approach based on observations of key stakeholders on each issue, this analysis attempts to to qualify the threat of these criticisms to XRP adoption using two matrices. The first will contrast Current Unknowns – how much about this risk is unknown, vs. Threat Development Time – how long market participants will have time to make decisions based on new information. The second matrix explores the Probability that the threat will occur versus the Impact on XRP in terms of the severity if the threat materializes. https://coinsavage.com/content/2019/01/risk-analysis-of-xrp-the-four-horsemen/

https://www.coindesk.com/swift-chief-announces-integration-with-r3-at-paris-fintech-forum Oh the sweet irony. R3 partner with SWIFT. Even when Ripple lose, XRP holders win here.

https://dailyhodl.com/2019/01/22/ripple-partner-reveals-plans-for-xrapid-as-trader-who-called-crypto-crash-predicts-big-move-for-xrp/?fbclid=IwAR2FdPglFdzN9vgZCelQzqRvgDcKAChZoynXwwOikpKOZiahnpM6P0ewluk

I find David Schwartz disturbing. He’s so concise, I imagine that his thoughts are precompiled in JavaScript within his brain before being executed. DavidSchwartz.exe