XRP surged 3.5 times in one month; it's not surprising that it rose, but what’s surprising is that before the surge, XRP's market capitalization was already ranked fifth overall. No one expected XRP to easily surpass Solana and USDT, becoming the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
In fact, the surge of XRP was not without cause. As early as November 12, WOO X Research noted that due to regulatory factors, SOL and XRP are potential beneficiaries (https://x.com/WOOXResearch/status/1856236859707240523).
In addition to regulatory easing, Ripple has also released many positive signals.
Multiple institutions have applied for XRP ETF: On October 2, an application for the XRP ETF was submitted and has officially been filed with the state government website. Subsequently, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse stated that the XRP ETF is 'inevitable.'
In addition to Bitwise taking the lead, Canary and 21 Shares have also submitted applications for an XRP spot ETF.
Stablecoin: In mid-November, Ripple announced the launch of the dollar stablecoin Ripple USD (RLUSD), which is a stablecoin specifically designed for enterprise payments, aimed at strengthening Ripple's cross-border payment solutions. The New York Department of Financial Services has indicated to Ripple that it will approve the issuance of the RLUSD stablecoin, which the company plans to launch on December 4.
Korea's push: With the rise of XRP, Korean VC Hashed Founder @0xryankim stated that Ripple sold XRP to Korean grandmothers using a Ponzi scheme back in 2014, causing many to buy XRP, and thus there is a genuine XRP community in Korea.
It can also be observed on Upbit that the current trading volume in Korean won is highest for XRP, surpassing Bitcoin's trading volume by 10 times.
The surge of XRP has also sparked great interest in other high market capitalization older coins, hoping to replicate its price performance.
XLM
XLM and XRP have a myriad of connections; it was founded by Jed McCaleb and Joyce Kim in 2014. Jed McCaleb was also involved in the creation of Ripple (XRP) and the Mt. Gox exchange.
XLM is primarily used for payments, aiming to provide fast and cheap global payment solutions, especially targeting areas lacking banking services.
Although Stellar and Ripple both focus on payments, their target markets are different.
Ripple is more focused on cross-border settlements for large financial institutions and banks.
Stellar focuses on payments for individuals and small to medium-sized enterprises, as well as inclusive finance.
XLM and XRP are closely related, so their price movements often synchronize. XLM can also be seen as the Beta of XRP.
Recent significant news driving the price increase is that on November 14, asset management giant Franklin Templeton announced an investment of $1.7 trillion in XLM.
Market capitalization ranking: 15
Current market capitalization: $16.35536 billion
Current coin price: $0.544
Price increase in the last seven days: +18%
ADA
Cardano was founded in 2017 by Charles Hoskinson, one of the eight co-founders of Ethereum, after leaving Ethereum to create a PoS public chain. At its launch, funding was concentrated in the Japanese market, leading some to say that ADA players are mostly from Japan.
At that time, PoS was a novel concept, and 250 TPS was representative of a high-speed public chain in 2017. However, as time passed, Cardano's development speed has been heavily criticized. Compared to other public chains, Cardano's upgrades and ecosystem advancements have been relatively slow, leading most developers not to consider Cardano as their first choice for deployment projects, resulting in a relatively thin ecosystem.
This has also led to the Cardano ecosystem's DeFi and other blockchain applications failing to reach a level of maturity comparable to Ethereum and other blockchains, limiting its ability to attract users.
But the recent surge of ADA may be attributed to the effects of Trump's presidency. Firstly, it alleviated concerns about ADA being classified as a security by the SEC, and most importantly: founder Charles Hoskinson may become Trump's cryptocurrency advisor.
Although it is currently in the speculation stage, Hoskinson's policy office is expected to open in January 2025, focusing on supporting legislative work. This also shows that Hoskinson is moving towards embracing compliance and a crypto-friendly direction, which has a positive incentive effect on ADA.
Market capitalization ranking: 8
Current market capitalization: $46.294 billion
Current coin price: $1.27
Price increase in the last seven days: +34%
HBAR
Founded in 2018 by Dr. Leemon Baird and Mance Harmon, the mainnet was launched in 2019. It is a well-established public chain focusing on low energy consumption and environmental friendliness. Hedera has already attracted many well-known Web 2 partners and clients, such as Google, IBM, Boeing, LG, Tata, etc. Recently, it also announced its entry into the RWA market, launching an open-source toolkit for configuring, issuing, and managing tokenized bonds and stocks on the Hedera network.
In terms of RWA applications, they launched the DOVU carbon credit trading platform, which can tokenize credit limits and convert them into crypto assets for use by businesses, governments, and individuals.
Market capitalization ranking: 19
Current market capitalization: $13.37544 billion
Current coin price: $0.35
Price increase in the last seven days: +160%
