JVCEA (Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association) Releases Statistics on Japanese Exchanges

We visualized some interesting data that was released by the JVCEA on February 20, 2019

The stats released by the JVCEA is a compilation of December 2018 transaction data provided by the members of the association.

XRP stands out as the most popular coin in Japan

Looking at the data, XRP makes up more than half (51.45%) of the customers’ cryptos held at Japanese exchanges.

The value of those XRP converted using the market price on December 31, 2018 was 98.9 billion yen.

This is 1.5 times the amount of customer Bitcoin held at the exchanges, which shows how significant XRP’s dominance is in terms of customer funds held at exchanges.

I can think of a few reasons to explain this phenomenon.

In most cases, a customer would hold the crypto that they bought using a wallet that they control, or would leave them on an exchange.

One reason that I can think of to explain the high volume of customer XRP held at exchanges is that there aren’t as many XRP wallet solutions compared to BTC or ETH.

Currently, there are a few easy-to-use wallets such as Edge and Exodus that can hold XRP, but when XRP started becoming popular two years ago, there weren’t that many wallet solutions available.

However, I think the main reason is just simply due to the popularity of XRP.

The problem that XRP is trying to solve is easy to understand:

Make bank-to-bank money transfers faster and cheaper.

With an easy to understand use-case, relatively low unit value, and being listed on most exchanges in Japan, XRP becomes an attractive option for someone thinking about getting into crypto.

XRP is fundamentally different from Bitcoin

XRP is different in so many ways from Bitcoin, but the most significant difference is that there is an entity that has issued and is operating XRP; Ripple.

It is a known fact that Ripple continues to hold approximately 60% of the XRP supply.

Bitcoin is not issued by anyone.

Bitcoin is not run by anyone.

There is no CEO of Bitcoin.

The fate of XRP is largely dependent on the decisions made by its operator,

Bitcoin has no operator, its fate is determined by the community.

Bitcoin transactions cannot be censored.

Anyone is free to transact using Bitcoin.

Bitcoin does not care about your race, nationality, social status, or the amount you are trying to send,

The idea of freedom and equality is what created cryptos in the first place, so it is interesting that the most popular coin is one created by a commercial enterprise.

Perhaps the fact that there is someone behind the coin is giving it a perception of assurance.