protos.com
Even after today’s 4% retracement off October’s near-record highs for crypto prices, most major assets have rallied year-to-date. Bitcoin has added 66% to its market capitalization while smaller assets like Dogecoin and BNB have nearly doubled. In fact, every top 10 crypto asset has posted positive or neutral performance in 2024 except one: $XRP.
With total crypto market capitalization $680 billion higher than January 1, holders of $XRP are disappointed, to say the least. Even troubled stablecoins like tether — with its 19 run-ins with the US government, including a Manhattan US Attorney investigation this month — have performed better than the Ripple-promoted coin.
The pain is even more acute after Ripple partially prevailed in the highest-profile lawsuit in crypto history and earned a ruling from Judge Analisa Torres that many secondary transactions of $XRP purchases by retail investors were not securities transactions.
Read more: How New York judge Analisa Torres changed Gary Gensler’s career
Of course, the world’s most powerful and well-staffed securities regulator is asking the prestigious 2nd Circuit to overrule that determination. For a while, though, it seemed like $XRP had cleared a major legal hurdle.
The $XRP community also celebrated major scalability upgrades to the $XRP Ledger and the launch of its new stablecoin, RLUSD. Prominent banks announced intentions to explore XRPL for cross-border payments. Ripple started tokenizing real-world assets via a partnership with the first Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)-regulated digital asset exchange.
None of it earned $XRP more of a bid over its competitors among the top 10. Year-to-date, $XRP is down 17% and has shed $5 billion in market capitalization.