The XRP token, which is linked to Ripple Labs, has become the fourth-largest cryptocurrency in the world in terms of market cap, after a weeks-long rally triggered by President-elect Donald Trump's election win in November and recent speculation about the SEC potentially dropping its legal case against Ripple.
The price of XRP rose above $2.50 early on Monday, before dropping slightly to $2.30—a 21% surge over the past 24 hours and nearly a 50% increase compared to last week.
Since Trump’s electoral victory, XRP’s market cap has risen from around $30 billion to $131 billion on Monday.
XRP’s market cap crossed $100 billion for the first time since 2018 over the weekend, as it overtook Solana’s SOL to become the world’s fourth most valuable cryptocurrency.
XRP also briefly overtook Tether’s USDT stablecoin market value early on Monday, before settling slightly lower.
Bitcoin, whose value has hovered around $100,000 in the past week, remains the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency with a market cap of nearly $1.89 trillion, followed by the Ether token which has a market cap of $436 billion.
🔶WHAT FUELED THE XRP SURGE THIS WEEKEND?
While the price of XRP has risen steadily since election day, the surge in its prices over the weekend came after Fox Business reported that the New York Department of Financial Services may soon approve the launch of Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin. The report said the company may be preparing to launch RLUSD as early as December 4.
Ripple Labs, which developed the XRP payment protocol and uses the token for its payments platform, was sued in 2020 by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The agency accused the company of selling XRP tokens without registering it as a security. In July last year, the regulatory agency was dealt a blow after a federal judge ruled Ripple did not violate securities law by selling the token on public exchanges. In October this year, the SEC appealed the ruling before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. However, Trump’s electoral victory and SEC chair Gary Gensler’s announcement that he is stepping down in January, has triggered speculation about the Ripple case. Speaking to Fox Business last week, former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Chris Giancarlo said he thinks the SEC should drop the case against Ripple. Giancarlo is one of the top contenders to serve as the “Crypto Czar” in the incoming Trump administration.
🔶WHAT TO WATCH FOR
In a post on X last week, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said that CBS News’ 60 Minutes program had interviewed him “about crypto, the push for regulatory clarity and how the industry banded together to advocate for pro-innovation candidates (on both sides of the aisle) through Fairshake PAC.”
🔶KEY BACKGROUND
The post-election cryptocurrency surge has been driven by expectations of a more crypto-friendly regulatory environment under the Trump and the GOP controlled Congress. During his campaign, the President-elect embraced a pro-crypto stance and promised to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the planet.” This was a major policy shift compared to his earlier stance, when he called Bitcoin a “scam” and a disaster waiting to happen.
