XRP becomes the third-largest crypto by market cap again after surging by 10% today

XRP just shoved its way back into the top three, knocking Tether down a notch after a brutal 10% jump that started early Monday morning. The price shot up from $2.35 to $2.65 in just hours, recovering hard after a Sunday dip.

At press time, XRP sat at $2.57, still up over 9% in 24 hours and 22% on the week, per data from CoinGecko. The rally lifted its market cap to $151 billion, pushing past Tether’s $149.9 billion and taking back the third spot behind Bitcoin and Ethereum.

This rally came during a full-on bullish run across the whole crypto market. Bitcoin jumped past $105,700, rising by 1.5%, while Ethereum gained 4.38% to hit $2,625. The total crypto market cap hit $3.28 trillion, the highest level since February 2025.

Kraken and institutions pile in behind XRP

The exchange Kraken posted a chart on X, writing, “Gm, anyone else watching $XRP today?” They followed that up with “New ATH soon?” That comment hit hard, considering Kraken had been one of the few major platforms to relist XRP in 2023 after the US court ruled that sales of XRP on exchanges were not securities.

That legal win finally turned into something useful. The SEC officially gave up, dropping its appeal and walking away from a battle that had dragged on for years.

Institutional money hasn’t wasted time. Franklin Templeton filed an S-1 for a new XRP product. CME dropped news of a futures launch, and Brazil’s Comissão de Valores Mobiliários signed off on a new XRP ETF. These aren’t small moves—they’re full-scale products aimed at bigger investors.

Outside of crypto, other markets moved too. Tech stocks broke out after months of dragging, with Nasdaq 100 futures flying up 3.8%. The US dollar rose to a one-month high, gold dropped more than 3%, and the 10-year Treasury yield moved up to 4.43%.

Ripple also made headlines with a $1.25 billion deal to buy Hidden Road, one of the biggest mergers in crypto so far. That is expected to boost institutional activity around RLUSD and the XRP Ledger.

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