Ethereum Ousts XRP As Second Cryptocurrency

Over recent weeks, as covered extensively by Ethereum World News, XRP, the go-to asset for fintech startup Ripple, began to underperform Ether (ETH). ETH began running in mid-December, outpacing a majority of other cryptocurrencies as it bounced off its year-to-date low at $81 to a multi-week high of ~$157 in a few days’ time.

And while the asset has since pulled back, along with the rest of this nascent market, Ether is still outperforming its peers, even its rival — XRP. Since getting listed on Binance as a base pair, the asset has embarked on a strong move downwards on Bittrex’s ETH/XRP pair. More specifically, since the all-time high at 0.00365 ETH was established on December 19th, the asset has moved lower and lower.

On Wednesday morning, the asset suddenly fell rapidly, losing 2% of relative value in a matter of an hour, subsequently finding itself at 0.00248 ETH.

This relative movement to the downside has allowed Ethereum’s aggregate capitalization to surpass that of XRP, which now sits as the third-most valuable cryptocurrency.

At the time of writing, Ether, currently valued at $143.8 apiece, has a $268 million lead on its rival. But considering that the two cryptocurrencies spent most of the day neck-and-neck, it wouldn’t be surprising if the gap proceeded to close.

This battle for the second seat comes after the two cryptocurrencies began duking it out in November, which was when XRP suddenly surpassed Ether. At the time, some thought it was over for the project dubbed the “world computer.” But, in the past weeks, as aforementioned, the asset began a comeback.

On December 29th, ETH posted a 15% gain, allowing it to close the gap to $1.2 billion. Just days later, the gap closed to $700 million, as Ether continued to outperform nearly every single cryptocurrency in the top twenty. Now, it seems that the gap is now on XRP’s end. For now, at least.

Potential Catalysts For Ether Rally

Looming Constantinople Hard Fork : Ethereum’s Constantinople continues to loom nearer and nearer. Since the hard fork has been deemed long-term bullish by a number of analysts, due to the upgrade’s feature to reduce Ether issuance, the price action has been somewhat justified.

: Ethereum’s Constantinople continues to loom nearer and nearer. Since the hard fork has been deemed long-term bullish by a number of analysts, due to the upgrade’s feature to reduce Ether issuance, the price action has been somewhat justified. ConsenSys is Doing Fine And Dandy : Joseph Lubin, the founder of Ethereum development consortium ConsenSys, has claimed that his firm — the backbone of the aforementioned network — is doing relatively fine and dandy, in spite of the rumored layoffs. This likely restored investors’ faith in ETH.

: Joseph Lubin, the founder of Ethereum development consortium ConsenSys, has claimed that his firm — the backbone of the aforementioned network — is doing relatively fine and dandy, in spite of the rumored layoffs. This likely restored investors’ faith in ETH. Oversold Compared To Its Top 10 Counterparts: For most of 2018, Ether has been drastically oversold in comparison to its peers in the cryptocurrency top 10. In fact, at its low, the asset was down almost 95% from its all-time high, while BTC was only down 85.5%. This recovery is somewhat logical then, especially considering that ICO-backed projects were liquidating their Ether holdings seemingly without rhyme nor reason.

Title Image Courtesy of Marco Verch Via Flickr