It has been another disappointing day of trade for owners of Ripple (XRP). At the time of writing the Ripple price is down over 5% during the last 24 hours to 81.3 U.S. cents according to Coin Market Cap.
This has reduced the popular altcoin's market capitalisation to just under US$34.5 billion.
It also means that Ripple has now lost 75.6% of its value in the space of two months. At that point Ripple's XRP had a market capitalisation of US$128 billion, US$93.5 billion higher than where it stands today.
Why is Ripple lower today?
The majority of today's decline is likely to be related to general weakness in the cryptocurrency market.
All the major cryptocurrencies have tumbled lower today after a series of negative news flow hit trader sentiment. Bitcoin (BTC) is down 5.5% to US$9,440, Ethereum (ETH) is off almost 7% to US$706.64, and Litecoin (LTC) is lower by 5% to US$177.
This news flow includes Japanese regulators shutting down a couple of exchanges, lower trading volumes, and reports that U.S. regulators want to crack down on crypto exchanges.
In addition to this, Ripple has been a particularly poor performer this week after rumours that it would be added to the Coinbase exchange turned out to be false.
According to CNBC, the speculation started after it emerged that Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Coinbase President and Chief Operating Officer Asiff Hirji would both appear on the network's Fast Money show on Tuesday.
It was later confirmed, however, that both parties would be featured in separate segments and not together.
Coinbase later confirmed via Twitter that it has "made no decision to add additional assets to either GDAX or Coinbase."
As Coinbase is one of the largest exchanges in the world, traders were betting that its addition would result in a significant increase in interest and buying.
Should you buy Ripple?
I think that technologically Ripple is one of the best cryptocurrencies out there and has significant potential to be used in the real world.
But, ultimately, deriving a value from this usage is very difficult. If you are bullish on cryptocurrencies in the long-term and expect the whole market to lift then I think Ripple could be one of the better ones to bet on. But I would suggest that traders only trade with what they can afford to lose.
