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In a fresh shake-up, Tether (USDT) stablecoin has once again overtaken $XRP in the crypto market rankings. With a market capitalization of $141.4 billion, Tether now ranks as the third largest cryptocurrency, pushing $XRP to the fourth spot with a current market valuation of $139.72 billion.
Bitcoin is down again on Friday, having fallen roughly 7% in the last week — but practically every other asset in the top 10 coins by market capitalization (excluding dollar-pegged stablecoins) has declined by twice that percentage or more.
$XRP suffered major losses among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization over the last seven days. $XRP has fallen 22% in the previous week, dropping from above $3 after reaching a seven-year high earlier this month. It is down 1.42% on the day to $2.41 as of this writing. The decline consequently forced $XRP out of the top three cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.
Amid the current market uncertainty, stablecoins are considered a "safe haven," meant to maintain a stable value relative to a given asset or basket of assets, which may explain Tether's market valuation increase.
What's next?
$XRP fell for three days in a row since Monday's bounce, despite increasing attention from ETF providers. $XRP declined from Tuesday to Thursday, and at the time of writing, it was aiming for a rebound following a drop that began over the past weekend.
On Thursday, Chicago's Cboe Exchange filed four different applications with the Securities and Exchange Commission, requesting permission to list and trade spot $XRP ETFs from WisdomTree, Bitwise, 21Shares and Canary. Following the successes of Bitcoin and Ethereum last year, major asset managers are now fighting to be the first to introduce $XRP ETFs in the U.S.
Amid the recent dip, it seems whales are seizing the opportunity to accumulate. According to crypto analyst Ali, whales snapped up 520 million $XRP in the recent market dip.
While Tether presently leads $XRP, crypto rankings are always shifting. Whether $XRP can reclaim its spot will be watched out for in the coming sessions.