Counterparty (XCP) Could Hit $200 By The End Of The Month

Back in October 2017, Counterparty (XCP) commanded a market capitalization of a little over $22 million and was priced in and around $8 a piece. Daily volume at these levels fluctuated in and around the low hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of coins trading hands per twenty-four-hour period, with the odd spike here and there but rarely breaking $1 million a day.

In other words, the coin was active to a degree but it was very much an under the radar asset and one that still had some way to go before it came anywhere near the top 100 cryptos on the market.

XCP Daily Chart

Right now, January 11, 2018, XCP trades for a little over $85 a coin. Market capitalization is flirting with $225 million and, over the last twenty-four hours alone, more than $37 million worth of XCP changed hands – with the vast majority ($25 million plus) traded across Bittrex.

In other words, Counterparty has gone from obscure coin to major player in a little under three months.

So what’s going on?

This one is, in our eyes, one of the most interesting coins on the market right now. For anyone new to Counterparty as an entity, the company was set up to develop a platform (or, more accurately, an ecosystem) through which developers can create their own digital token that’s tied to the bitcoin blockchain. In addition to this, the company’s technology enables anyone to write specific digital agreements, or smart contracts, and execute them on the bitcoin blockchain.

This sort of functionality is described by Counterparty as “writing in the margins” of regular bitcoin transactions and it dramatically increases the functionality associated with bitcoin and the bitcoin blockchain.

A whole host of applications and contract type offerings have been built on the platform since its launch and Counterparty has gained a substantial following, both from a community perspective and a developer perspective.

So where does XCP come into the picture?

XCP is the coin that’s used as a sort of fuel payment when bitcoin cannot be used. So, for example, it’s used to pay for the execution of all smart contract code. Outside of this specific usage, it also represents stake in the Counterparty protocol (for holders), and is the voting currency for changes to be decided on by the community.

Naturally, then, as activity associated with the Counterparty platform increases (as more developers come on board and, in turn, as the applications they develop and launch increase in popularity), more XCP is required to keep the applications operational and, by proxy, the increased demand boosts price.

So why is the coin running right now?

Well, the company just put out this update, outlining what happened over the last couple of months and what’s set to hit press this quarter as relates to the company, its various projects and the coin behind it.

Notably, the Counterparty foundation has been dissolved, which means the project is now 100% open source (as was the case when it first kicked off.  This is a strong move by the guys behind counterparty and it’s essentially representative of the team handing over the project to its developer community – a real vote of confidence.

And what comes next?

As outlined in the above linked to update, there is a real flurry of activity surrounding the platform right now and we expect that this is going to continue throughout the first and second quarters of this year. As such, it’s hard to see anything but upside for XCP. The coin is very much tied to adoption and, right now, adoption is full steam ahead.

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Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide, investment advice. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency.

Image courtesy of Counterparty