As noted by Stevenson, 44 million people just got access to XRP. However, that is not a claim that 44 million people have bought the cryptocurrency. Instead, it references Rakuten Wallet, which added XRP to its Rakuten Pay app, allowing its 44 million users to use the cryptocurrency as a payment method across more than 5 million merchant locations in Japan.
Therefore, this implies that a consumer base of 44 million users now has access to XRP anytime they want, particularly to be used as a payment option. That matters for XRP because the cryptocurrency’s long-running investment thesis has always leaned heavily on payment utility. It also plays into the trend of an outlook of adoption by financial institutions. As noted by Stevenson, “this is exactly what institutional adoption looks like, and most people are completely missing it.”
Price Is Not The First Signal To WatchMost crypto investors, especially retail traders, are always chasing headlines and expect the XRP price to jump very quickly to moves like this. However, there is a risk in expecting adoption to show up instantly on the price chart.
On the other hand, real adoption doesn’t move prices immediately. Institutional money doesn’t move on headlines. The more important things are transaction volume, merchant adoption, and proof of concept at scale.
