The XRP price has soared over the weekend to overtake Ethereum as the second largest cryptocurrency in the world, thanks to three of the credit card majors from Japan and other big players in the financial markets. As the world moves in to greet the New Year, 2018, the last trading day of 2017 saw the market cap of Ripple rising to $76 billion overtaking the $73 billion market cap of Ethereum, though well behind the $246 billion of Bitcoin.

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The last quarter of 2017 has witnessed some seismic activity or fireworks in the global cryptocurrency space with Bitcoin leading the pack and taking its price to graze the $20,000 mark before settling around the $15,000 level. Many of our readers would remember that Bitcoin was sitting below the $1,000 mark in December last and hoping that it would cross the coveted $1000 mark in the New Year 2017. Well, while Bitcoin did meet those expectations, it has perhaps surprised everyone through the quantum leap as we move into yet another New Year. It is, therefore, necessary to examine the frenzied activity in global cryptocurrency markets to understand the surging Ripple, at this point.

Cross-border currency movement aiding the surging XRP price

Ripple is a cryptocurrency designed mainly for banks and businesses engaged in money transfers across the globe. The Ripple token is known as XRP and for the first time in its history the price of the token rose above the $1 mark on 21st December, quintupling its market cap to over $50 billion between just three trading days in that particular week with the bursting XRP price scaling yet another peak at $1.90 before settling down to $1.85 as at 2.15 pm EST on Friday the 29th December 2017.

During 2017, the surging Ripple rocketed by as much as 28,000% to become the most valuable cryptocurrency under the sun, going by the data provided by CoinMarketCap, a price tracker for cryptocurrencies.

More banks and global financial institutions partnering with Ripple