Ripple, one of the leading cryptocurrency projects, oriented mainly towards facilitating cross-border payments and settlement, has seen an 85% decrease in its total sales for the first quarter of 2020.
Ripple released its quarterly report yesterday and revealed some interesting insights and statistics.
Per the document, the company has seen a serious decrease in its total sales compared to the last quarter of 2019. During the last three months of the previous year, Ripple saw a total of $13.08 million in institutional direct sales. It’s important to note that these are over-the-counter (OTC) sales intended to “build XRP utility and liquidity in strategic regions including EMEA and Asia.”
In the first quarter of 2020, however, this number dropped to $1.75 million, representing a decrease of about 85%.
The report also says that “in Q1 2020 … Ripple continued to pause of programmatic sales, focusing solely on its over-the-counter-sales.”
The document touched on the overall market climate, looking at the massive selloff across all markets in March.
“… as the S&P dipped below 3,000 on Black Thursday, unprecedented volatility spread through digital asset markets. Bitcoin (BTC) saw its largest one day move ever, losing over 50% of its market value in a matter of hours – a decline accelerated by billions of USD worth of liquidations on leveraged derivative venues and lending platforms.”
Furthermore, holders reportedly rushed to transfer their digital assets to meet margin calls or to sell out of their positions and take advantage of price dislocations. The document states that “while the entire crypto market, including XRP, experienced volatility, the performance of the XRL Ledger (XRPL), such as transaction pricing and speed, remained stable making XRP the preferred digital asset for funds transfer.”
Following the events of March 12-13, however, the crypto market staged its recovery with most leading coins regaining their previous positions. Such is the case for Ripple’s XRP that’s currently trading at around $0.22 only about 10% down to its price before the crash.