There’s only one altcoin that’s performed worse than XRP in CoinMarketCap’s top 100 over the past seven days.
It’s been a miserable week for XRP.
The world’s third-biggest cryptocurrency is down 18.23% over the past seven days — and at the time of writing, it’s fallen under the all-important $0.50 mark.
There’s only one altcoin that’s performed worse than this in CoinMarketCap’s top 100. That’s AMPL, which has lost 19.11% over the same period.
By contrast, Bitcoin is only down by 0.64% and Ethereum’s slide is a much less severe 2.74%... so why has the wind been knocked out of XRP’s sails?
Airdrop Agony
Over the weekend, the Flare Network held an airdrop for Spark tokens that was supported by many major exchanges. A snapshot was taken of everyone’s XRP balance, with the new token set to be distributed proportionally.
The Flare blockchain is yet to launch, but its objective is to deliver smart contract functionality for the XRP token, meaning that the ledger can compete with Ethereum when it comes to decentralized finance and decentralized apps. Spark tokens have mainly been designed to prevent spam attacks.
It’s possible that people were holding on to their XRP with the sole objective of getting access to Spark tokens — and now, sell-offs have commenced.
Bitcoin Bounces Back
The unpredictable world of weekend crypto markets has been kind to Bitcoin. After beginning Saturday at about $18,100, the asset had reached highs of $19,381 by Sunday. That’s a boost of about 7% — but it seems like $19,400 remains a stubborn level of resistance that the world’s biggest cryptocurrency is struggling to crack.
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