Ripple price (XRP/USD) edges lower despite positive start on Friday

The Ripple price (XRP/USD) has edged lower despite seeing some positive price action at the start of today’s session.

The digital currency had a relatively quiet session on Thursday, with its price hovering in a tight range below the $0.32 mark. Having started the session at $0.316, the coin fell to an intraday low of $0.314 in the morning portion of the session. XRP’s performance improved slightly in the afternoon, which allowed the coin to enter the positive territory. The coin finished the session at $0.317, according to data from digital currency tracker Coinmarketcap.

The coin saw a slight uptick in the early hours of today’s trading, with its price rising to as high as $0.319. The coin has pulled back in subsequent trading and is currently hovering around the $0.315 mark.

At current price levels, Ripple’s total market capitalisation stands at nearly $13 billion, which makes the coin the second-largest digital currency on the market. However, according to a recent report by crypto data company Messari, the actual market cap of XRP is significantly lower.

The $13-billion estimate is based on the assumption that there are roughly 41 billion XRP tokens.  However, Messari argues that some 19.2 billion of those “may be illiquid or subject to significant selling restrictions”. As reported by industry website Coindesk, Messari suggests that this includes “at least 6.7 billion XRP” held by Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb.

Coindesk noted that the report had been disputed by a spokesperson for Ripple.

“Not only does this report contain several inaccurate assumptions around lockups and selling restrictions, the entire report is based on an incorrect calculation of market cap. While decentralized digital assets like XRP are different from traditional equities, the term ‘market cap’ is always a very simple calculation: current price X total number of the asset = market capitalization. That puts XRP’s current market cap at approximately $31 billion. We believe that any other calculation of market capitalization for XRP is not a clear representation of the truth,” the spokesperson said, as quoted by Ripple.

The figure cited by Ripple is based on the total number of XRP tokens in existence, which is 100 billion.

In today’s trading, the Ripple price stood at $0.315, as of $16:03 GMT. The digital coin has lost 0.3% of its value in the past 24 hours.