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At the beginning of November, a friend in the community privately asked me what I thought about XRP. I pondered that this friend was new to the crypto world, had not much investment experience in the past, so I wondered if I could use XRP as an example to demonstrate the analysis system. Thus, the following conversation occurred:

Me: What do you think of XRP? First, do you understand what it does?

Friend: I'm not very clear; I just know its market value is quite high, relatively stable compared to other altcoins, and it has been sued by the SEC. It seems that Trump's presidency has a chance to ease this lawsuit relationship, but I haven't looked into what this coin specifically does.

Me: Alright, about the question 'It seems that Trump's presidency has a chance to ease this lawsuit relationship'... Is this information reliable?

Friend: Not very reliable, I saw it on Twitter, and it's just speculation.

Me: So this is not reliable; let's not talk about understanding for now. Let's first look at the K-line and market value. What is XRP's current market value?

Friend: 31 billion, ranked fifth, that's really high!

Me: If you buy it, how many times do you plan to wait for it to increase? Would you dare to invest heavily? Clearly, this is not something to invest heavily in because you don't really understand it. If it rises 10 times, that would be 310 billion, putting it in second place.

Friend: 310 billion is impossible because I can't get a large amount. I see it is relatively stable and was thinking about whether to speculate and buy a little, but I don't dare to invest heavily.

The conversation about XRP ended there. Just less than a month later, XRP rose from 0.55 to 2.41, more than quadrupling.

Today I asked this friend again. I asked, it seems like you missed out on XRP, are you feeling bad about it? He said, not really, just feels very ridiculous, how did it pull up to over 100 billion?

Ridiculous, can it not be ridiculous? I think many people find it very ridiculous, and that's why I want to talk to everyone about it today. To be honest, I have been playing with blockchain for six years and have never used Ripple Network; XRP is something I still don't understand to this day. Of course, not understanding doesn't mean I don't know what XRP is, but rather I haven't figured out the logic behind holding it.

XRP is the currency that operates on RippleNet, which is run by Ripple. The function of RippleNet is to create an efficient and low-cost solution for cross-border payments. In simple terms, it's a cross-border payment network where XRP can be freely exchanged for various fiat currencies.

From my personal perspective, there are only two reasons I would invest in such projects: first, the user base continues to grow rapidly; second, the company's main business continues to grow rapidly. Unfortunately, XRP seems to fall outside of these two categories, and my review has revealed that it is a bona fide 'whale coin.'

In 2004, Ripple founder Ryan Fugger established Ripple Payment (Ripplepay) Company, which was renamed Ripple in 2013, primarily focusing on B-end cross-border remittance services, beginning to explore cooperation with various banks and financial institutions. In an early interview, Ripple's senior vice president also mentioned that half of their clients are banks, and the other half are technology payment providers. Among the bank partners, 25% are top-tier banks, such as Tokyo Bank, Mitsubishi Bank, Santander Bank, and Standard Chartered Bank.

This is not the case; many of Ripple's well-known partnerships have long been terminated. For instance, the largest bank in the EU, Santander, froze Ripple after realizing that XRP could not meet customer needs; MoneyGram also terminated its partnership with Ripple due to the increasing costs of XRP payments.

It is worth mentioning that according to Ripple's past claims of having over 200 clients in more than forty countries, Ripple should have excellent revenue, but the reality is that Ripple has never disclosed its profitability, and relevant partners rarely have use cases or frequency of financial services from Ripple. The two most important reference standards for investment decisions are hidden like a black box, which is a significant problem in itself. Additionally, if we look at it from the most pessimistic perspective, if Ripple's business volume is merely a show, then how is their team sustaining their inventory?

You're right, the answer is selling coins. The XRP held by Ripple is divided into two parts: one part is in its wallet, and the other part is in ledger custody. From September to December 2023 alone, Ripple officially reduced its holding by 185 million XRP, and the XRP in ledger custody was reduced by 600 million. If we count from March to April 2023, Ripple sold a total of 3.4 billion XRP, calculated at $0.5 each, this income amounted to $1.7 billion. This is not something Ripple started doing this year; as early as 2019, foreign media speculated that Ripple's total income was $652 million, of which 80% came from selling XRP.

Earlier, XRP had already been criticized by investors. Ripple's CTO responded that XRP is merely a derivative of the company's business, and we need to reasonably release XRP to ensure R&D funding. This reasoning is not problematic, and there is nothing wrong with the project party selling coins. The issue lies in the fact that XRP is not just about selling off; it often collaborates with institutions to sell off, leveraging positive news to pump prices, and the methods are quite sophisticated.

Note that I am talking about methods, not tactics. What many may be most concerned about regarding XRP is the entanglement with the SEC. Many in the crypto community express support for Ripple, believing it is truly a crypto fighter. Many people probably know that the SEC sued Ripple due to securities law issues, but what they do not know is that when the SEC sued Ripple in December 2020, the lawsuit detailed evidence that the SEC profited $1.3 billion from market manipulation. The document is 71 pages long, and I won't elaborate further.

In 2017 and 2018, Ripple signed agreements with at least 10 CEXs, paying these exchanges XRP to allow for trading XRP, and additional trading indicator rewards were also set. Furthermore, during the token issuance process, Ripple established a market team specifically responsible for monitoring XRP's price and trading volume, while regularly communicating with the market-making team for currency value management, ensuring that the sold XRP was within 10-25 basis points of daily trading volume.

Market value management will naturally also be coordinated with news. Since 2016, XRP has been significantly rising and falling in alignment with news. On August 12, 2017, Ripple's founder directly instructed Ripple-related employees to actively provide news to increase speculative value. One particularly obvious aspect was coordinating buybacks to pump prices; the third quarter market report of 2020 disclosed Ripple's $45 million buyback news, and XRP's price also rose in response. This year involved distributing news about the fight with the SEC and releasing information related to stablecoins to coordinate price increases.

As of today, Ripple Labs still holds over 50% of XRP, with a circulating market value of 130 billion and a total market value of 230 billion, making it the largest 'whale coin' in the crypto world, without exception. As an ordinary person, I can only keep my distance, even if it has increased fivefold in a month.

Not understanding means not touching, which is the greatest protection for one's assets.