Recently, the cryptocurrency market has welcomed positive news, and the well-established public chain Ripple (XRP) has attracted considerable attention. The news that SEC Chair Gary Gensler is about to resign has sparked market expectations for friendly regulation. At the same time, the ongoing legal dispute between Ripple and the SEC continues to release positive signals, clearing obstacles for XRP's development. This series of favorable developments has driven XRP's price to surge over 250% in a month, with a single-day increase exceeding 35%, reaching a three-year high, and investor enthusiasm is high.
The existence of XRP has overturned traditional perceptions of venture capital (VC) and protocol value in the cryptocurrency field.
The Misunderstanding of VC Sell-offs and Meme Coins Resistance
The facts show that it is not Meme coins that truly resist VC, but rather protocols with stable cash flow and long-standing 'Dino Coins'. For example, Hyperliquid successfully launched through community distribution, relying on self-raised funds from the founders, proving that a strong community can be built without VC.
The Unique Value Proposition of XRP
XRP demonstrates the importance of a protocol's reliability and time-tested nature, challenging VC logic:
No VC exposure: Almost no VC investment, completely separating it from VC profit models.
No reliance on smart contracts: Simple and efficient functionality stands out.
The contradiction between users and market value: Only 20,000 active addresses, yet a market value of $180 billion, breaking the traditional view that 'user scale determines protocol value'.
Focus on core functions: XRP focuses on transaction sending, with its efficient performance making multi-functional protocols appear inferior.
The success of XRP reaffirms that the long-term value of a protocol is not determined by VC or complex technologies, but by its reliability and core competitiveness.
XRP/SOL Incident and Regulatory Landscape Changes: In-depth Analysis and Insights
The 'God Candle' phenomenon of XRP/SOL, which refers to the sharp rise in price, occurred simultaneously with severe events such as human exploitation, human trafficking, and suicide attempts appearing on Pump.fun live broadcasts. This series of events prompts a deep reflection: in a situation where a protocol has a large user base but lacks effective review mechanisms, it is highly likely to breed illegal activities and exacerbate social problems, and this adverse trend will inevitably attract scrutiny from regulatory agencies or law enforcement.
This brings up the controversial characteristic of XRP's Trust Lines. This feature stipulates that users must actively build trust relationships before accepting specific tokens. As a result, users cannot arbitrarily send so-called 'racist tokens' or other unpopular tokens to any address. Although this design has been criticized for having a 'high friction' issue in user experience (UX), it effectively suppresses low-quality usage and aligns with the needs of high-quality users like banks. As the market gradually realizes the potential drawbacks of lacking such security guarantees, this mechanism is increasingly gaining wide recognition.
Bitcoin (BTC) has almost no application in such scenarios, yet it performs far better than Ethereum (ETH), even though Ethereum claims to be able to 'drive Web3'. This is merely the beginning phase of market transformation, while the SOL live event allowed people to truly understand what 'massive applications beyond purchases' look like, and deepened the understanding of the key significance of compliance.
Another significant shift is that, since Trump's election, the aggressive enforcement system has come to an end. This has transformed US-based protocols from being on the brink of extinction to being in a 'protected' state. Any attempt to scrutinize Ripple Labs is likely to face strong opposition from the US government.
The biggest risk XRP faced in the past was that the US government might accuse its Unique Node List (UNL) of money transmission, leading to OFAC fines and prompting the SEC to sue every validator to force compliance. However, with changes in the regulatory environment, these risks have turned into advantages for XRP.
Protocols with similar risks, such as Cardano and XLM, have therefore taken more proactive measures. Today, the regulatory environment in the United States even regards them as key tools for resisting censorship.
In addition, the special position of the United States in the global financial system has also played a role in this trend. The United States is one of the core areas for global anonymous cash, as it is difficult for other countries to enforce reporting requirements on American financial institutions. Tether can be seen as an extension of this logic on-chain—a cash reserve pool of up to $135 billion that is in a semi-compliant state. As long as these assets are denominated in US dollars, the US government does not care about reporting requirements from other countries. This is also the root cause behind Tether's shutdown of operations in Europe.
The United States hopes to consolidate the dollar's dominant position globally through financial innovation in the cryptocurrency sector. The research and development activities of XRP have thus shifted from the 'marginal zone' to an organic part of US government policy.
Although some attribute the recent price fluctuations of XRP to retail investor movements, in reality, the holding structure of those long-standing currencies is highly concentrated. Most 'whales' in the network have not sold at the current price levels, even though market liquidity would support them doing so. This highlights their continued confidence in XRP's future, a confidence derived from the cumulative effect of the many factors mentioned above.
The logic of the market is always precise, and our mission is to strive to understand it and learn from it.
Today's article ends here. Currently in a bull market, with changes in the air, we share passwords every day.