XRP whales trigger 12% surge as price nears pre-2018 levels

Ripple’s native crypto, XRP, continues to make waves, posting a 12% surge in just one day. The latest rally appears to be fueled by huge whale accumulation, growing speculation around a US exchange-traded fund (ETF) listing, and the end of Gary Gensler’s reign at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

XRP turned out to be one of the biggest gainers on a day that saw Bitcoin (BTC) regain the crucial $97,000 mark. The global crypto market recorded a marginal recovery on Wednesday morning as most of the top altcoins printed red indexes. The cumulative crypto market cap stands at $3.37 trillion with a trading volume of $127 billion.

XRP soars 408% in 90 days

Crypto analysis firm Santiment reported in a post that XRP hit the $2.69 mark on Wednesday, its highest level since December 17, 2024. At the time of publication, the token was trading at $2.89, its highest since early 2018. It has a trading volume of over $13.4 billion with a market cap of $161.15 billion.

Ripple recently displaced Tether (USDT) to grab the 3rd spot among the largest digital assets.

The recent price surge has outpaced the Bitcoin rally. XRP has gained more than 408% in the last 90 days while BTC gained only 44%. However, Ripple’s native crypto is still going strong by adding 18% of gains in the past 30 days, on the other hand, Bitcoin has lost 8% of its price.

Since November 12, 2024, wallets holding between 1 million and 10 million XRP have accumulated 1.43 billion XRP tokens, a 37.4% increase. This group now holds approximately $3.8 billion in XRP. 

🐳📈 XRP investors are pleased to see the #3 market cap asset reach $2.69 today for the first time since December 17, 2024. This is being supported by continued enormous accumulation from wallets holding 1M-10M XRP, who own over 37% more coins than they did 2 months ago… pic.twitter.com/G3a3N5iSAS

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) January 14, 2025

Crypto analyst Ali mentioned in a post that whales have bought 1.09 billion XRP over the past week. He added that the number of transactions worth over $1 million on the XRP network is on the rise. It has hit 341 such transactions in the past 24 hours.

SEC deadline closes in on Ripple lawsuit

The Ripple token surge is driven by optimism around its potential use in banking, low transaction costs, and as a bridge currency for cross-border payments. Meanwhile, the positive outcomes for the Ripple team in the long-running lawsuit with the US SEC is one the other major reasons for the accumulation.

January 15, marks a crucial deadline for the SEC in the Ripple lawsuit. Speculation is mounting over the SEC’s stance on programmatic XRP sales and their classification as a security. Back in July 2023, Judge Analisa Torres ruled that programmatic sales of Ripple tokens do not meet the third prong of the Howey Test.

As the deadline approaches, all eyes are on the commission. Will the agency challenge the programmatic sales ruling? It seems likely the SEC will move forward with its appeal. It is also expected that Paul Atkins could take a more lenient approach to crypto enforcement and could possibly withdraw the appeal ahead.

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