The recent crypto correction disappointed many crypto investors. However, every correction after a speculative rise comes with a cleanup. We strongly believe that Ripple will be among the winners of this recent 'catharsis'. Ripple's spectacular breakout this week is the ultimate proof of this.

As per our Ripple price forceast for 2019 we believe that the bear market for Ripple ended earlier this week. We even made a strong case that Ripple's XRP token will reach 20 USD by 2020. That's indeed a 50-fold rise against current levels.

This forecast only makes sense if Ripple ends its bear market, and enters a new bull market. Now that is exactly what happened this week.

Fundamentally, the crypto market looks great. We discussed this in great detail in 5 reasons why the crypto market looks promising in 2018 and beyond:

1. The birth of a totally new asset class: crypto.
2. Adoption is still very low, there is a lot of untapped potential.
3. Innovation in the crypto space is amazing.
4. The bear market in crypto prices results in a serious cleanup which is a good thing.
5. Bitcoin’s price remains in a long term bull market trend with solid support at $6000.

It may feel counterintuitive that Bitcoin's price is bullish but that is due to sentiment. The bearish sentiment created by the media as well as disappointed (crypto) investors is huge. From a contrarian perspective, however, this is rather a great opportunity provided crypto fundamentals are solid.

Note that we published the above mentioned fundamental crypto analysis at the depth of the bear market. It requires a lot of courage and conviction to do so, and we are confident our analysis will be proven right over time.

Factual and unbiased analysis of the crypto market led us to conclude that the grand crypto bull market is alive and kicking. Moreover, deep analysis of Ripple's XRP fundamentals make us even more excited.

That's because of the 'catharsis' that took place in the crypto market, as mentioned above. At least 80% of cryptocurrencies  are useless. They may be technologically cool, but have not sufficient added value on this planet.

Stated differently, cryptocurrencies that survive any correction will only come out of it stronger.

Now that is exactly what we believe is happening with Ripple. Ripple, the company, continued the rollout of their innovation roadmap at high speed. In doing so, they found a clever way to make their XRP token meaningful by integrating it in their upcoming solution. These are signs of a startup that has traction as per lean startup principles.

The daily chart of Ripple (XRP token) embedded below shows the bear market which, essentially, has the form of a giant triangle pattern. Note how perfect this pattern is, with only exceptionally a failed breakout or failed breakdown outside of this pattern (which, moreover, tended to last just one day).

The breakout on this chart is impressive. It is what we are used to see from Ripple, it has a track record of breath taking rallies but also declines. 

The news that was considered the catalyst for Ripple's impressive run this week was xRapid's software making use of the XRP token (source: CNBC). Acknowledging that this is a very important evolution, we believe there is much more important news that preceded but was neglected by the market simply because of the extremely bearish sentiment.

Both the fundamental picture as well as the chart of Ripple confirm that the bear market ended this week. This is part of the bigger picture promising fundamental outlook of the crypto market in general which, by the way, is undergoing a healthy cleanup.

In sum we believe the XRP token is a great long term investment, from a fundamental and a chart perspective. The upside potential is considerable. We feel confident with this statement knowing that many have a totally different viewpoint.