XRP up 16% today, what is driving the gains?

The XRP rally has continued to show strength after breaching $3 for the first time in three years.

Ripple (XRP) surged over 16% from a 24-hour low of $2.73 to an intraday high of $3.17 on Jan. 16, pushing its market capitalization to $178 billion and cementing its position as the third largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).

XRP 24-hour price chart — Jan. 16 | Source: crypto.news

At press time, XRP was up 8.4%, supported by a surge in trading activity. The token’s 24-hour trading volume reached $23.8 billion, marking a 79.40% increase compared to the previous day.

Why XRP is going up?

XRP’s recent rally, which initially began on Dec. 30., when the altcoin bottomed around the $2 psychological support level, has been primarily fuelled by optimism around President-Elect Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration that will bring some highly anticipated changes at the Securities Exchange Commission.

The SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple, initiated in December 2020, accused the company of conducting unregistered securities offerings through XRP sales. Under the current SEC Chair, Gary Gensler, the case has seen prolonged litigation.

Gensler is expected to step down as SEC Chair on January 20, with pro-crypto advocate Paul Atkins, a Trump nominee, set to take over. This leadership shift has fueled speculation that the SEC may drop its appeal in the Ripple lawsuit, potentially paving the way for a favorable settlement and lifting the regulatory cloud that has long loomed over XRP and also increasing the likelihood of a spot XRP ETF getting approved.

Further, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has previously noted that Trump’s election win is already having a positive effect on Ripple, with the company signing more deals in the last six weeks of 2024 than in the previous six months. See below.

Beyond hopes of regulatory clarity, the broader Ripple ecosystem’s growth has also played a pivotal role in bolstering positive investor sentiment around the altcoin while also expanding the network’s utility.

Notably, Ripple’s dollar-pegged stablecoin RLUSD, which launched in mid-December 2024, has already surpassed several of its competitors like PayPal’s PYUSD and Justin Sun’s USDD, Frax.

Roughly a month since its launch, the stablecoin has amassed over $72 million in market cap and boasted a 24-hour trading volume of $141 million when writing. In comparison, PYUSD, which launched in 2023, had a 24-hour trading volume reaching $24 million.

Meanwhile, the growing popularity of Ripple meme coins like XRP ARMY, which was up over 186% in the past week, and Britto, following closely with weekly gains of over 87%. Other memes, like PHNIX and LIHUA, also posted double-digit gains.

Whales have also contributed to XRP’s upward momentum. According to data from analytics platform Santiment, wallets holding between 1 million and 10 million XRP tokens have accumulated over $3.8 billion worth of XRP since November 12, as noted in a Jan. 15 post on X.

XRP could rally to $10: analysts

With the aforementioned factors and Bitcoin’s resurgence above $100,000 following cooler-than-expected U.S. CPI data, market analysts anticipate XRP’s rally to continue in the coming days and surpass its previous all-time high, with many projecting a potential climb to a new all-time high of $10.

According to analyst Ali Martinez, XRP was currently in the middle of a “massive bullish breakout.” In a recent X post, he explained that recent whale accumulation and retail buying have helped the altcoin break out of a bull pennant, which positions the token for a price that could push it to $10.

Well-followed XRP community member ‘XRP Whale’ also pointed to a similar target.

At the time of writing, XRP was approximately 9% below its all-time high of $3.40, reached in January 2018.