XRP Worth $225m in Mystery Move as Ripple Token Flips BNB And Price Soars to $1.76, Next Stop $5?

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Ripple’s XRP token has just flipped BNB to become the fourth-largest cryptocurrency, excluding stablecoin Tether (USDT), as $225 million worth of XRP tokens goes on the prowl.

XRP traded as high as $1.766 today as the holiday season rally warms up and bitcoin makes another try for $100,000. The XRP price high today equates to a market capitalization of $100.78 billion, overtaking exchange coin BNB on $95 billion.

The Ripple liquidity token has since pared those gains, coming down to $1.70, but is still in fourth place behind Solana on $115 billion. In a huge 20% price move, XRP added more than $10 billion to its value in a matter of hours.

Next in the sights of the XRP Army is Solana, on a market cap of $119 billion.

The XRP circulating supply market cap is the highest it has been since 2018:

xrp circulating market cap

News that the class action lawsuit against Ripple, XRP, and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, being heard in the US District Court of California court, has seen the judge grant a motion to expedite the final judgment of the case, a ruling that is being interpreted as good news for Ripple.

This is a separate case from the Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit, although they both revolve around whether Ripple sold an unregistered security when it issued XRP. The outcome in California may affect the SEC lawsuit.

Crypto Czar role for Garlinghouse

Elsewhere in XRP land, there are furtive rumors that Garlinghouse might be detsined for the Crypto Czar role, heading up the crypto policy group that the Trump administration may be putting together. But they are just rumors at this point, despite X post claims to the contrary.

139 million XRP on the move – a sign that a price explosion is coming?

In other Ripple news that may be generating buying pressure, there have been two huge whale transactions reported by Whales Alert, involving the transfer of 35,000,000 XRP ($58,286,649),

…and 104,392,571 XRP ($167,229,621)

In dollar terms that amounts to XRP valued in excess of $225 million. It is not known who owns the wallets involved so it is hard to ascertain at this point whether they are all Ripple-controlled wallets, movements off or onto exchanges or a non-corporate entity.

Whatever the exact motives behind the transactions, it is evidence of the furtive atmosphere in the XRP market as the token pushes to retake its all-time high at $3.84.

Aside from those who bought at the top of the market in January 2018, the vast majority of XRP token holders are in profit, which means there will be profit-taking on the way up from here.

XRP trading volume rockets but there’s much more to come in this crypto bull market

XRP trading volumes have rocketed to the highest level since 2021, as shown in the chart below (weekly bars):

xrp all time volume (weekly bars)

But anyone who thinks that this crypto rally is running out of steam, they are very likely wrong as a chart put together by Bloomberg, comparing the bitcoin return versus the MarketVector Digital Assets 100 Small Cap Indexan index of Altcoins demonstrates, normalized as of November 29, 2019.

bitcoin vx altcoins - bloomberg

Another chart makes the picture even clearer.

In crypto-mad South Korea the gap between the bitcoin price in the country and offshore – the Kimchi premium – has not moved into the exaggerated premium territory usually seen where crypto trading has reached euphoric levels.

bitcoin kimchi premium - bloomberg

That’s not to say all the retail money is sitting on the sidelines. Far from it. This time around the action is burning brightest among the meme coins as we ease into altcoin season, and a lot of that trading is taking place on decentralized exchanges.

The bitcoin Kimchi premium would, of course, be no good for capturing the impact of meme coin trading given that it is bitcoin-centric.

With the crypto market in rude health there seems to be no stopping XRP at this point. A $5 near-term (as in by Christmas?) price target is reasonable, but Jack the Rippler invites you to vote for $100:

We thought that a $40 price target for XRP was at the extremes, but $100 is off the charts entirely. XRP at $100 would take its market cap into the stratosphere at $10 trillion. To put that wishful PT into perspective, the US national debt is $36 trillion.

You can buy the tokens mentioned in this article on Best Wallet – its native token $BEST is currently in presale.

For more crypto picks to power up your portfolio, take a look at the best crypto to buy now.

Disclaimer: The article is not investment advice and is provided for informational purposes only. Capital at risk.

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