Is XRP Going To Replace Ethereum As the Number 2 Crypto?

Ripple has been the slowly and steadily rising in price. At the end of September, XRP briefly overtook Ethereum’s ether to become the world’s second most valuable cryptocurrency.

Ripple’s RollerCoaster Ride

Ripple’s XRP has had a dramatic year so far. It reached a high of $3.36 and a market cap of $130.3 billion during the first week of 2018 largely on the back of a sustained rally in cryptocurrency markets. But it fell into a downward spiral after a barrage of criticism from experts and regulators crashed its price in the ensuing months.

Even as Ripple inked agreements with banks to test its technology for international transfers, critics questioned its cryptocurrency’s utility in such transfers. Their criticism mainly centered around the fact that XRP is not essential nor required to make transfers. Most banks, while enthusiastic about Ripple’s technology, have been hesitant to incorporate XRP as part of the mix. The uncertainty in XRP’s regulatory status further contributed to the downward pressure on its price.

But September has brought about a turnaround in XRP’s fortunes. Its price shot up by 115% during the month’s third week after reports that the company’s xRapid product, which uses XRP to accomplish bank transfers, would go live in a “month or so”. Even news that the company’s co-founder is selling his XRP stash in large amounts has failed to significantly dampen its upward price movement.

Ethereum’s Diminishing Market

Ethereum, on the other hand, has been going down all year. While it remains the world’s main platform for implementing smart-contracts, lots of complaints have been published all over Twitter, Reddit, and other social media about the network.

It’s becoming too slow, and the gas price is becoming too high. Also, earlier this year two of Ethereum’s most important users (Tron and EOS) left behind the network and the ETH token to star their own Main Nets. On top of that, last month the network was basically taken over by users playing a simple game and that made bandwidth very scarce for many other projects.

Like XRP, ether’s role in smart contracts has come under a cloud in recent times. Critics argue that tokens, built on top of ethereum’s blockchain, are sufficient to conduct transactions. The situation is further complicated by the large number of tokens that have emerged on ethereum. Building an exchange rate for the tokens via ether in a dynamic environment where the value of tokens and ether fluctuate constantly with respect to each other is another strike against ethereum’s cryptocurrency. The scaling problems faced by ethereum’s blockchain also have investors worried.

Conclusion

Ethereum is one of the biggest names in the crypto ecosystem and its downfall suggests a psychological hit for the entire space. Not only is XRP closing in on ETH, but other tokens like Cardano’s ADA, Stellar’s XLM or Tron’s Tronix are also either doing well in recent days or still looking very promising for investors.