XRP and ETH Grapple for Second Spot on List of World’s Largest Cryptocurrencies

In a characteristic display of the crypto market’s volatility, rapid rises and falls in price have seen Ripple and Ethereum battling it out for the spot of the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

After briefly usurping Ethereum’s spot as the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization last week, Ripple once again surged by around 20% to temporarily overtake ETH on Wednesday. Currently, there is a difference of less than $1 billion between the market caps of XRP and ETH.

While Bitcoin has consistently maintained its spot as the top cryptocurrency by market cap from the start, ETH first rose to its number two ranking in February 2016. Since then, it has more or less retained the spot save for a few instances – to mention a few, XRP temporarily displaced ETH in May and December 2017.

Since the second week of January 2018, ETH has maintained its second spot despite radical market changes. However, over the last few months, with ICOs having begun to dwindle in popularity owing to regulatory uncertainty and crackdowns, panic selling has set in and several projects have sold their Ether holdings, consequently crashing the price. This, coupled with positive news about Ripple’s xRapid payment system, pushed XRP to topple ETH by rising roughly 75% last week.

XRP’s most recent surge appears to be prompted by the announcement that leading crypto exchange Coinbase is considering listing more digital currencies (although there is no guarantee that XRP will be listed).

While ETH has rebounded fairly quickly to reclaim its number two ranking, XRP cannot be written off as yet. In addition to the fact that their market cap difference is not particularly significant anymore, XRP has risen more than 100% this month, as investors count on the cryptocurrency becoming the premier global payments system for established banks and financial institutions worldwide (deVere Group founder and CEO Nigel Green has predicted that XRP will reach $1 per token by the end of this year). Ethereum, meanwhile, has fallen by around 84% this year so far, and stands to face tough competition from the rapidly rising Ripple.