XRP, the cryptocurrency tied to blockchain payments firm Ripple, has reclaimed its position as the third-largest coin by market capitalization, stirring significant reactions within the crypto community. XRP dropped out of the top three in December 2020 when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Ripple, alleging it conducted an “unregistered digital asset securities offering.” With the SEC lawsuit nearing resolution and Ripple securing multiple legal wins in 2024, XRP has surged. Its price saw a notable spike in November following Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election. After lagging behind cryptocurrencies like Tether (USDT), Binance’s BNB, Solana (SOL), and Circle’s USDC for years, XRP has now climbed back to the third spot, following Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). “This is how it looked before Dec. 22, 2020,” pro-XRP lawyer John Deaton remarked on X. The lawsuit initially caused XRP’s price to plummet from $0.50 to $0.17, erasing over $15 billion in market value. “While the price recovered, XRP spent the next four years at the #7 spot,” Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett noted in a Dec. 1 post. Despite its decline, XRP consistently remained within the top 10 cryptocurrencies, signaling its resilience. In November, XRP gained further traction online, with Google searches for “XRP” surpassing those for “crypto” multiple times. According to Google Trends, XRP even briefly overtook Ether (ETH) in search popularity but has yet to surpass Bitcoin. To overtake Ether in market capitalization, XRP would need to rise significantly. Crypto trader Christopher Jaszczynski, known as MMCrypto, predicts, “XRP will flip ETH when its price surges to $7.75.” At present, Ether’s market cap exceeds XRP by 219%, suggesting that XRP still has a considerable gap to close before challenging ETH for the second spot.
