The coin hit a six-year high, reclaiming its position as the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, surpassing Tether’s USDT and even surpassing the market value of asset management giant BlackRock.
In Wednesday morning trading in the US, XRP topped $3 for the first time since January 2018.
The rally was fueled by optimism over inflation data from the US Consumer Price Index (CPI) and hopes for crypto-friendly policies from the incoming administration. Ripple’s legal battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over whether XRP is a security has also attracted attention, especially amid speculation about regulatory changes.
XRP has been on an impressive growth trajectory, up 488% since Donald Trump’s election victory. With a market capitalization of $170 billion, XRP now holds the third spot, behind only Bitcoin and Ethereum’s Ether. The coin’s strong comeback has been fueled by Ripple’s expanding partnerships, the launch of the RLUSD stablecoin, and rumors of a spot XRP ETF. Ripple President Monica Long has also been optimistic, hinting that ETF approvals could accelerate under the new administration.
Read more: Bitcoin Surpasses $100K as Inflation Continues to Ease
Large investors have also played a major role in XRP’s price surge. Analytics firm Santiment found that addresses holding between 1 million and 10 million XRP have accumulated an additional 1.4 billion tokens, worth nearly $3.8 billion, since mid-November. This accumulation has continued in a sideways price phase since peaking in early December, adding fuel to the rally.
Meanwhile, data from Google Trends shows that XRP recently surpassed Bitcoin in search interest. This is the third time in the past year that XRP has topped Bitcoin in global search volume.
