Throughout the short history of cryptocurrency, hundreds of coins have debuted and then died. Digital altcoin graveyards are filled with coins who thought they may one day challenge Bitcoin but are now nothing more than a distant memory–a forgotten file on a few former users’ hard drives. Throughout this tumultuous time, two coins have consistently retained their place atop the market cap charts: Bitcoin at #1 and Litecoin at #2.

The litecoin price has struggled recently, dropping its total market cap. The Ripple price, in contrast, has experienced recent gains–even as the coin supply has increased. Ripple now sits poised to claim the Litecoin’s #2 market cap ranking–a feat no other altcoin has accomplished.

Ripple Price Increase Could Drop Litecoin to #3

Despite experiencing some dark days following the messy departure of Kraken CEO Jesse Powell from the Ripple Labs Board of Directors and co-founder Jed McCaleb’s decision to sell his 7 billion XRP. CCN.com noted in our analysis of this situation that the next several weeks would be key if Ripple was going to maintain investor confidence. Although the price took a temporary hit, Ripple successfully weathered the storm, and it has emerged stronger than it was before.

Over the past several months, The Ripple increase has steadily increased, even as more XRP have entered circulation (this explains the huge market cap jump on August 25). Recently, the Ripple price was bolstered by the news that two United States banks will adopt the Ripple protocol. Since July 7, the Ripple price has increased from 453 satoshis to its current price of 1,433–an increase of 215%. At press time, Ripple’s market cap was $135,689,413 (market caps and charts via CoinMarketCap).

Litecoin Price Struggles

While Ripple has been rising, Litecoin has struggled.. Throughout 2014, the litecoin price decreased dramatically. In August, the litecoin price hit a floor and finally reached a somewhat-consistent level of around 1 million satoshis. During September, the litecoin price has managed to tread water, increasing somewhat following the announcement of PayPal’s partnership with GoCoin, a payment processor that facilitates litecoin transactions. At press time, the litecoin price was 1,122,780 satoshis.

However, September’s slight litecoin price increase is not enough to counter its prolonged decline or match Ripple’s rise. Litecoin’s current market cap is $139,246,151–just $4 million ahead of Ripple.

Analysis

If current trends continue, Ripple could soon surpass Litecoin for second place on the market cap chart. But Ripple is not the first coin to challenge Litecoin for the second-place market cap rank. Throughout 2014, Dogecoin, Nxt, and Darkcoin have all risen to third-place, but each coin price fell long before it could give Litecoin a serious run for its money. However, none has come as close as Ripple, which is now just a few million dollars away from accomplishing this lofty feat. If Ripple does manage to pass Litecoin, there is no guarantee it could hold that rank. Nevertheless, at this point, it’s probably time to stop referring to Litecoin as cryptocurrency’s “silver standard.”

Disclosure: The author does not have any investments in or affiliations with the coins listed above. Images from Shutterstock.