Billionaire Investor Novogratz Discusses Ripple 3x Surge: 3 Possible Factors

XRP, the native cryptocurrency of the Ripple network is up another 10 percent as investors speculate on what has caused its price to nearly triple in the past week.

According to prominent investors and analysts, the staggering 155 percent price increase of Ripple in the last seven days from $0.27 to $0.69 is largely attributable to three major factors: short squeeze, possible pilot tests using xRapid, and rise in social media activity.

Coincheck, Bitbank, and Coinone also recorded large XRP volumes, thereby opening up the possibility of banks in Japan and South Korea continuing their pilot tests on xRapid, the liquidity product of Ripple.

For years, SBI Holdings, a major financial institution in Japan, has operated as one of the core banking partners of Ripple.

SBI has led the biggest consortia of banks for Ripple including Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and Mizuho Financial Group - all of whom are actively testing xRapid and other products launched on top of the Ripple network.

The testing of Woori Bank and Shinhan Bank, two of the biggest financial institutions in the country, was a part of a larger partnership established between Ripple and South Korean banks in December 2017.

As Ripple is scheduled to announce a product release on its blockchain network next month, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse is guaranteeing that a dozen more banks are set to use Ripple by the end of 2019.

In regards to Ripple, Novogratz explained that a short squeeze impacted its price to a certain degree and as the price went up, new investors entered.

"They're building a great business. Full disclosure - we're a 1% owner in Ripple the company, not the coin They have a good story. When something jumps 3x, I don't understand it. [Maybe] it's a short squeeze to a degree, as I'm sure some people were short, but there were [likely] new buyers."

These three factors led Ripple to increase in value by over 155 percent in a seven-day period, even briefly surpassing Ethereum in market valuation.