Ripple, also known as XRP, has had a fairly healthy growth rate over the past month, especially after breaking the $1 milestone for the first time. A major factor that led to the boost is the fact that a coalition of 61 financial institutions in Japan and 2 large banks in South Korea launched a new cross-border payment trial. Also, the partnership with SBI Ripple Asia (the same organization that arranged the cross border payment trial) has been a huge contributor over the past few weeks.

After a slight drop on Dec 22nd, the price rallied back up to a bullish run that has now gone past $2.50, according to CoinMarket Capitalization

Compared With Ethereum

Although Ethereum has had a good run as the second most popular cryptocurrency (sometimes even being regarded as a possible replacement for Bitcoin), Ripple has attracted lots of attention from a variety of financial institutions, leading to partnerships with banks in south Korea, Japan and even the American Express Project in the US.

With a four-second transaction settlement time, Ripple dramatically lowers the time it takes to complete a transaction, making faster than either Bitcoin or Ethereum.

Compared With Bitcoin

Evidently, Ripple has a unique and more friendly design than Bitcoin especially with the recent network delays that Bitcoin has been experiencing. And even though it’s not certain that its bullish run will continue in the coming days, it is evident that it has a lot of potential for growth in the cryptocurrency world. XRP’s market capitalization is certainly catching up with Bitcoin’s 200 billion market cap and has now passed Ethereum’s 70 billion market cap. With a market cap of over 90 billion, Ripple is arguably valued more than most companies in Silicon Valley and has seen a tremendous increase over the past month.

Conclusion

Bitcoin got a lot of attention in 2017 and most people have not been paying much attention to other alternative coins. However, Ripple’s insane growth the past few weeks is sure to create a buzz as we go into the New Year and it will be no surprise if it holds onto its current second position for a while considering that it offers faster transaction speeds.

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Let us know what you think; will Ripple maintain its bull run and remain the second biggest after Bitcoin?