XRP (XRP) appreciated nearly 7% today, with significant gains against both the US-dollar and its Bitcoin trading pairs.

Looking first at its performance in US-dollars, XRP looks to have broken out above resistance to hit a 13 day high of $0.275. After spending the last week of September and the first week of October grinding against the respective support levels of $0.235 and $0.245— the third biggest cryptocurrency is now up nearly 20% from its September 24 low of $0.23. In comparison to XRP, Bitcoin has struggled to break free of its two-week lows of $7,800—before now popping up again, to its current price of just over $8,000.

The double-digit rally is mirrored in XRP's price against the Bitcoin trading pair. In the period between now and Ripple's USD low on September 24, each XRP token's price in BTC has risen from 0.000027 to its current level of 0.000034—a 26% increase in value.

Historically, bumps like this in XRP's price have traditionally come as the result of Ripple signing partnerships with large financial institutions. But there haven't been any large announcements from Ripple. Some analysts have argued that it's more to do with XRP's price bottoming out, suggesting investor appetite for the currency is changing.

Elsewhere, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse is due to appear on Anthony Pompliano's latest podcast later this week. In the 90 minute recording, Pompliano said that Brad did everything he agreed to, including answering the "hard questions" and responded to the projects many "detractors".

Last week, Brad's colleague and Ripple CTO David Schwartz mooted the idea of an XRP-collateralized US dollar stablecoin. With the price of XRP down 3% last week and now up 7% today, XRP doesn't bear the hallmarks of a stable asset. I wonder what Brad has to say on the matter.