Should You Buy XRP While It's Under $3?

While there's rarely a dull moment in the world of cryptocurrencies, the last few months have been especially eventful. After running on a decidedly pro-crypto platform, President Donald Trump's election led to Bitcoin surpassing the $100,000 mark for the first time ever. It wasn't long ago that reaching six figures seemed like a pipe dream to many.

And as is typical for crypto, Bitcoin was the tide lifting all boats; many altcoins saw major rallies on the heels of Bitcoin's run, especially XRP (CRYPTO: XRP). Trading around $0.50 prior to the election, the token rose more than 550% in its wake, reaching as high as $3.31 before retreating to its current levels.

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So, with XRP below $3 per coin, is now the time to buy?

XRP has real value

In a market flooded with meme coins that provide no tangible value, XRP stands out as having a real, proven use case. The token is designed to be an intermediary, facilitating payments between banks and other financial institutions, especially across borders when currency exchange complicates matters.

The current legacy standards are complex and costly. International transactions can take days, if not weeks, to settle. In contrast, XRP transactions are settled in fractions of a second for fractions of a cent.

How much value is the real question

It's clear that XRP has real-world value because it's already being used in the real world by financial institutions. However, investors need to try to quantify that value. After all, even at its current price around $2.50, XRP's market capitalization sits just south of $140 billion dollars -- that is quite a large market cap.

Though it's not apples to apples, Visa is a useful comparison as the company operates a payment network most everyone is familiar with. The company's network handles more than 640 million transactions per day. XRP's blockchain handles about 1 million transactions per day. Visa's market cap of $700 billion is 5 times that of XRP's, yet it is responsible for 640 times as many transactions.

Of course, as I said, this isn't a 1-to-1 comparison. Visa's network generally handles a different kind of transaction than XRP, but I do think the comparison is still useful. It seems to me that XRP's current valuation is overly generous, to say the least.

Let's look at it another way. XRP bulls point to the hundreds of billions a year banks pay in transaction fees. If XRP were to capture a significant portion of the market, it would capture this value, right?

But remember that the whole value proposition of XRP -- the reason a bank would even consider abandoning current, proven methods -- is that transacting with it is dirt cheap. Indeed, XRP transactions are orders of magnitude less expensive than what they promise to replace. It follows, then, that even if XRP captured the entire market, rather than generating hundreds of billions of dollars in fees, it would generate hundreds of millions of dollars. Is that enough to justify a market cap of $140 billion? I don't think so.

Don't get hung up on short-term catalysts and hype

The last few months make it clear that much of XRP's current value is directly tied to the actions -- or potential actions -- of the Trump administration. A friendlier Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could make things easier for XRP and Trump could add XRP to a strategic reserve of digital assets, as he has said on Truth Social he intends to do.

These things could very well happen and drive the token's price up. However, I think this is bound to be a short-term phenomenon. The underlying issue of overvaluation remains and eventually, the hype will fade, bringing the price back down to earth.

So, do I think now is the time to buy XRP? I do not.

Should you invest $1,000 in XRP right now?

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Johnny Rice has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Visa, and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.