The first half of 2019 brought goods times for cryptos in general, and particularly Binance coin. XRP, though, eked out relatively meager gains.

The third largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization closed at $0.396411 on June 30, representing 12.45 percent gains on the 2019 opening price of $0.352512 seen on Jan. 1, according to data source CoinMarketCap.

While not terrible by any normal standards, the double-digit price gain pales in comparison to binance coin’s (BNB) staggering 424-percent rise.

The seventh-largest cryptocurrency by market value, BNB is the exchange’s native token used for various purposes including paying trading fees on Binance’s platforms. Its price rose from $6.19 on Jan. 1 and closed at $32.44 on June 30 to become the best performing top-10 cryptocurrency H1 2019.

BNB is currently trading at $33.50, having hit a record high of $39.52 on June 22. Apart from its role in the growing trading activity on Binance, BNB likely benefited from token sale platform Binance Launchpad, which required participants to purchase the exchange coin.

Meanwhile, other top-10 cryptocurrencies – excluding stablecoin tether – also outperformed XRP by leaps and bounds in the first six months.

Litecoin rallied 301 percent in the first six months as markets likely priced in an impending miners’ reward halving, due in August.

Bitcoin, the top cryptocurrency, jumped 188 percent and looks set to rise even further ahead of its own halving, scheduled for May 2020. Further, the narrative is becoming entrenched in the markets that Facebook’s fiat and government bond-backed Libra cryptocurrency is net-positive for bitcoin, an anti-establishment asset.

While the $7,000 rise in bitcoin boded well for most cryptocurrencies, it did little good for XRP. Its dull performance looks even more confounding if we take into account the bullish technical developments on XRP’s chart.

To start with, XRP’s 50-day moving average (MA) crossed above the 200-day moving average at the end of May, confirming a golden crossover – a long-term bull market indicator. The 100- and 200-day MAs also produced a bullish crossover in early June.

Buyers, however, repeatedly failed to keep prices above $0.47 as seen in the chart below.

Daily chart

The situation looked hopeful when XRP breached a contracting triangle pattern on the higher side on June 22. The breakout, however, was short-lived, and prices fell 12 percent on June 27.

The failed breakout invited more selling and the cryptocurrency fell to $0.37 earlier today, the lowest level since May 24.

Looking forward, a convincing break above the June 26 high of $0.50 is needed to confirm a long-term bearish-to-bullish trend change.

Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency at the time of writing

Balloons image via Shutterstock; charts by TradingView