XRP Price Prediction: Wave 2 And 5 Targets Put XRP At $7 And $13

It is Christmas Eve, and on the cryptocurrency market, the prices of most of our beloved digital assets are turning holiday green. Currently, the third largest cryptocurrency, XRP, is no exception, as its price jumped over 5.1% from the day's low to its recent high of $2.325.

The past few days have been tough not only for XRP but for the cryptocurrency market in general, as about $416 billion of its market cap, or 11.53% of the total, was wiped out in the past week alone in a prolonged series of declines.

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However, today's trading session proved the bears wrong, as, first, Bitcoin broke its downtrend, and then all alternative cryptocurrencies experienced a wave of price appreciation. Now that we have the pump, the question remains: will the renewed optimism last long enough for XRP to recover to at least pre-dump levels?CoinMarketCap">

From one point of view, it is Christmas tomorrow, and traditionally, amid a festive mood, the cryptocurrency market sees a corresponding reaction.

On the other hand, we are at that time of the market when all traders and fund managers have to balance their books, close deals, report profits and losses, say goodbye and enjoy their year-end holidays.

Will XRP pump to yearly highs in 2024?

If in previous cycles this pattern - common on traditional financial markets - did not affect crypto much; this time, with the arrival of the likes of BlackRock, Fidelity and other traditional financial institutions, the same tendencies may apply to digital assets that trade without days off.

XRP set its local high at $2.90, its all-time high is above $3.3 and right now, the token is trading at $2.30. It is still at least 26% to the recent high, which may be too much for the token to go in these two days. However, nothing is set in stone and may not occur right from the start, but XRP may end the year on a positive note.

Bitcoin (BTC) passed $98,000 after the Dec. 24 Wall Street open as “large spot buyers” lifted deflated BTC price action.

MicroStrategy (MSTR), the business intelligence firm, is in the news again. This time, there are speculations that the Michael Saylor-led firm plans to issue 10 billion MSTR shares to purchase an additional $3 trillion worth of Bitcoin .

Analyst dispels MicroStrategy rumors

Jeff Park, Head of Alpha Strategies at Bitwise Asset Management, proffered reasons not to believe the speculation in a post on X. Park’s tone suggests disbelief, given the unrealistic nature of such a move, and dismisses it outright.

Primarily, the figure is staggeringly huge. To Park, it sounds absurd for a company to invest $3 trillion into an asset. Interestingly, the total market capitalization of Bitcoin currently at the market price is less than $2 trillion. Hence, pulling such a move would be almost impossible, as MicroStrategy is worth about $85 billion.

Beyond the surface, Park also addressed critical issues among some potential investors holding back from MSTR due to the price fluctuations of BTC. He referenced a previous post explaining the fears around MSTR and its price performance relative to the crypto market.

Bitcoin and MSTR’s valuation

Notably, Park clarified that MicroStrategy’s heavy investment in Bitcoin makes the value of the company’s shares intrinsically tied to BTC. He noted that if MSTR should dip to zero, Bitcoin’s value will be negatively affected.

However, he assured readers that even if Bitcoin plummets to a record low of $30,000, MSTR will still not crash to zero.

Park highlighted that MicroStrategy has multiple capital extension strategies and additional levers to win in the broader market. This aligns with a U.Today report, where Adam Back, Blockstream CEO, maintains that MicroStrategy’s shares are cheap, believing they are undervalued.

Furthermore, Park maintains that investors need to avoid being bearish with MSTR every time the price of Bitcoin drops. As of this writing, the BTC price was trading up by 3.95% at $97,548 in a surprising market rebound.

In a recent discussion on X, Ripple's Chief Technology Officer David Schwartz provided crucial insights into the nature of staking in the cryptocurrency market.

Schwartz's comments were made in response to an ongoing debate about whether crypto staking should be considered taxable.

In explaining his viewpoint, Schwartz noted that the creation of new value and the transfer of existing value are fundamentally different. He explains that staking falls into the former category while interest income falls in the latter. "You don't earn staking rewards, you create them. They didn't exist before you created them," Schwartz stated.

"Someone transferring existing value to you is not analogous," Schwartz stated, highlighting the unique nature of staking rewards compared to traditional financial income. This clarification is particularly relevant as regulators and tax authorities continue to grapple with how to classify and tax various crypto activities.

Is crypto staking different from stock dividends?

An X user had proceeded to ask the Ripple CTO about the difference between crypto staking and getting dividends from stocks.

Schwartz responded by explaining the key distinction between the two: "When you get dividends from stocks, someone else created/earned them and transferred them to you. With crypto staking, you create the property you receive. Staking is creating property, not receiving it from someone else who earned/created it."

To put it simply, crypto staking enables token holders to act as validators in a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism by locking their tokens into a staking contract. In exchange, they receive rewards, typically in the form of additional cryptocurrency. Staking allows crypto users to put their digital assets to work and earn passive income without selling them.

Take a look at what happened in the world of crypto by reading U.Today’s top three news stories.

MicroStrategy's Saylor pitches $600 million Bitcoin buy to Jeff Bezos

In a recent article, the "Daily Mail" reported that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is preparing to marry his fiancée, Lauren Sanchez, in a ceremony expected to cost around $600 million in Aspen, Colorado. According to information provided to the British tabloid by several sources, Bezos has acquired an expensive sushi restaurant to accommodate up to 180 guests and has rented several luxurious mansions for high-profile guests. However, soon after the publication, the Amazon founder took to social media to state that the story published by the "Daily Mail" is "completely false." Still, this did not stop MicroStrategy cofounder Michael Saylor from replying to Bezos's denial of the "Daily Mail's" claims; in his comment, Saylor suggested that Bezos should consider investing $600 million in Bitcoin rather than spending lavishly on his upcoming wedding. "$600M would buy a lot of Bitcoin," Saylor wrote.

Almost no new XRP investors coming

Recent on-chain metrics indicate a concerning trend for XRP. According to data provided by XRP Scan, the number of new accounts being created has sharply declined. In contrast to the peak activity observed earlier in the year, when more than 30,000 new accounts were activated in a single day, only 1,756 new accounts were created on Dec. 22, 2024. This significant drop suggests that XRP is not attracting new investors. Meanwhile, transaction activity on the XRP Ledger has also decreased, further reflecting waning engagement from both retail and institutional users. Currently, XRP is struggling to break free from a descending triangle pattern, with its price hovering around $2.30. This negative outlook is worsened by a decrease in user growth and network activity, which raises concerns about the asset's future in the crypto market. However, there is still hope for a reversal — possibly through major partnerships or network upgrades.

SHIB burns jump 936%, price reacts unexpectedly

Data revealed by the Shibburn tracking platform demonstrates that the rate at which SHIB meme coins are being removed from circulation has significantly increased, with millions transferred to dead-end wallets. Yesterday, Dec. 23, 6,690,287 SHIB were incinerated by the Shiba Inu community, which resulted in a remarkable 936.52% surge in the daily burn rate. The two largest transactions accounted for 3,507,923 and 2,300,437 SHIB, respectively. However, despite this surge in burning activity, the weekly burn figures are currently negative, showing a nearly 60% decline, with 62,381,241 SHIB coins locked in unspendable wallets over the past seven days. At the moment of writing, SHIB is changing hands at $0.00002303, up 8.05% over the past 24 hours, per CoinMarketCap.

Michael Saylor, founder of MicroStrategy business intelligence firm, who is currently its executive chairman in charge of its Bitcoin strategy, has taken to the X social media platform to reveal last week’s net benefit paid to the company’s BTC shareholders.

Saylor called it a Bitcoin “gift” to the company’s shareholders.

$299 million "Bitcoin gift" to MSTR shareholders

Saylor tweeted that last week, the treasury operations of his company resulted in a Bitcoin yield of 0.72% with a net benefit of approximately 3,177 BTC. Taking into account the BTC price of roughly $94,000 per coin that was observed yesterday and earlier today, this BTC yield equals roughly $299 million in a Christmas “gift” to MicroStrategy shareholders.

Thus, the MicroStrategy’s founder has stressed the company’s commitment to increasing shareholder value by means of strategic Bitcoin accumulation and yield-generation strategies. The company’s strong treasury management and its strategy focused on Bitcoin as a store-of-value have earned it a leading position among publicly traded companies that are embracing Bitcoin.

Another recent Bitcoin buy by MicroStrategy

On Monday, the company stunned the financial markets by announcing yet another massive Bitcoin accumulation as it acquired $561 million worth of BTC in addition to its other Bitcoin purchases made over the past two months. The average purchasing price was approximately $107,000 per coin.

As of now, Michael Saylor’s company holds a whopping 444,262 BTC valued at roughly $27.7 billion bought at $62,257 per BTC on average.

Earlier today, Saylor published a tweet, in which he defended his company’s Bitcoin accumulation strategy, saying that if you do not buy BTC at the top, you “leave money on the table.”