XRP is wobbling.
Crypto’s third biggest asset slipped for the second consecutive day, dampening its impressive fivefold price rally in the last month.
The price slump came amid a general drawdown in the cryptocurrency market as political turmoil erupted in South Korea with the country’s president enacting martial law this week. XRP fell 8% on Wednesday and 18% on Tuesday.
Most crypto majors including Bitcoin and Ether have recovered, though. BNB has even rallied to a new all-time high but XRP’s price is still in the red.
Mena Theodorou, co-founder of crypto exchange Coinstash, told DL News that the ripple effects of events in South Korea on XRP’s price are still unclear.
“It’s probably not a coincidence that XRP dipped slightly over this period,” Theodorou said. “It’s yet to be seen whether we will see more of a pullback or if the uptrend continues.”
This week in South Korea, frenzied XRP trading surpassed trading volume in the entire stock market. On Monday, the benchmark Kospi recorded $5.3 billion in total trading volume compared to over $6 billion in XRP trading activity on the nation’s crypto exchanges.
XRP trading volume on crypto exchange Upbit over the past 24 hours has reached $4.8 billion. That’s more than the XRP trading volume on Binance and Coinbase combined over the same period, according to data from CoinGecko.
Upbit is one of the so-called “big four” crypto exchanges in South Korea alongside Bithumb, Coinone, and Korbit. Together, they’ve accounted for more than one-quarter of global XRP trading volume on centralised exchanges in the past 24 hours.
XRP is the most traded cryptocurrency in South Korea, with residents representing the bulk of that activity. That’s because crypto regulations from 2018 largely prohibit foreigners from trading on Korean exchanges unless they operate bank accounts in the country.
Still, South Korean traders weren’t the only ones driving XRP’s price.
Recent retail trading activity on Coinbase is driving up a premium in the cryptocurrency’s price on the platform compared to their Asian counterparts.
Robinhood also restored XRP to its listed crypto assets late last month, leading to a spike in the price.
However, attention may be shifting away from XRP in the altcoin rotation carousel.
Crypto research outfit 10x Research said the market is “experiencing wild swings” as traders pile into the next token they expect will experience a price bump.
“After the Ripple XRP surge, the market rotation shows no signs of slowing down,” 10x Research said.
Tron’s TRX token has surged a whopping 61% in the last 24 hours and is close to eclipsing Lido’s staked Ether as crypto’s 10th biggest asset.
The price spike resulted in a new all-time high for TRX at 45 US cents, beating its previous record set in January 2018.
Tron founder Justin Sun basked in his token’s performance in an X post, saying: “Things have changed, but one thing hasn’t; Tron remains a top 10 contender.”
Osato Avan-Nomayo is our Nigeria-based DeFi correspondent. He covers DeFi and tech. To share tips or information about stories, please contact him at osato@dlnews.com.
