XRP's market value exceeds $10 billion, ranking third among cryptocurrencies

XRP’s market capitalization surpassed $10 billion Saturday evening, extending a multi-week rally that shows no signs of pausing.

Ripple , a token issued by a US blockchain payment company , has historically returned to the position of the third largest token by market value.

Ripple fell out of the top three cryptocurrencies by market cap in March 2020 after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Ripple for facilitating an “unregistered digital asset securities offering.”

With the SEC lawsuit set to be resolved and Ripple securing multiple legal victories in 2024, XRP rebounded and surged significantly in March after Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election.

After years of lagging behind Tether’s stablecoin USDt, Binance’s BNB, Solana’s SOL, and Circle’s USD Coin (USDC), XRP has now reclaimed its position as the third-largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin and Ethereum.

When the SEC sued Ripple in July 2020, its price fell from around $0.50 to $0.17, wiping out more than $15 billion in market value. Despite a recovery, Ripple remained in the top 7 for the next four years. However, some commentators see the fact that Ripple has never fallen out of the top 10 as a positive sign.

As XRP exploded in November, Google Trends data showed that searches for “XRP” surpassed searches for “cryptocurrency” at least three times that month, indicating growing interest and momentum in the token.

At the time of writing, XRP still lags behind Bitcoin in terms of search popularity, but managed to surpass Ethereum in early November.

Despite its recent surge, XRP still has a long way to go before it can surpass Ethereum as the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. ETH’s market cap is currently 219% higher than XRP’s.