Ripple (XRP) and Ethereum (ETH) are battling for the second position on CoinMarketCap once again. Last week, Ripple dethroned Ethereum from the second spot. However, the reign was short-lived as Ethereum reclaimed its place back after a few hours.
Ripple Price Increases
XRP’s price experienced another bullish force today – recording a 5% gain – in the last 24 hours. The price led to a big increase in the Ripple’s market capitalization. At the time of writing, according to data from CoinMarketCap, the difference between the market capitalizations of the two digital currencies is less than $115 million. Ripple market cap stands at $23.772 billion while Ethereum’s at 23.884 billion.
The price of Ripple skyrocketed by 80% since the beginning of August. According to a section of experts, the surge could be due to some positive flash news. After announcing the imminent launch of the so-called xRapid product, the market cap of XRP increased to over $20 billion from $10 billion in just 48 hours.
The entrance of some American banking giants like PNC to the RippleNet space also added momentum to the upward price trend. If the current momentum carries on Ripple could once again displace Ethereum from the second place.
Ethereum Price Fall
Ethereum’s native token Ether has been seeing red for the past few weeks. Since August this year, Ethereum’s value has fallen by over 44 percent – more than any other top 5 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. As a result, projects which were running on Ethereum blockchain saw their overall market capitalization falling and price of their native tokens plunging far below their initial price. They panicked and started abandoning Ether, fearing further price declines.
With that said the next few days will determine whether Ripple’s newfound gains will hold strong. In the meantime, the crypto community will be eagerly waiting for the hyped launch of Ripple’s new product xRapid in the next few days.