Earlier today, on March 5, the price of XRP, the native cryptocurrency of Ripple, recorded an 18 percent spike, becoming the best performing major cryptocurrency in the market.
Ripple’s Run
The overall valuation of the entire cryptocurrency market increased by $25 billion, as small cryptocurrencies and tokens like Particl, Ziliqa, and Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin advised Kyber Network recorded nearly 20 percent increase in value.
While bitcoin, the most dominant cryptocurrency in the market, outperformed alternative cryptocurrencies over the past week, in the last 24 hours, alternative cryptocurrencies have started to gain strong momentum, outperforming bitcoin.
The dominance index of bitcoin, which measures the dominance of the cryptocurrency over the market, still remains at 41.2 percent, a yearly high, despite the strong performance of alternative cryptocurrencies.
Several well-respected analysts including Max Keiser have stated that the dominance index of bitcoin will likely spike to 60 percent and potentially 80 percent in the mid-term, as it continues to dominate the market. But, if alternative cryptocurrencies and other major currencies like Ripple and Ethereum begin to regain momentum at this point, it may be difficult for bitcoin to regain the dominance it had over the market last year.
Traders have suggested that the price of Ripple, the best performing major cryptocurrency in the market today, has surged due to unconfirmed rumors that Coinbase, the biggest cryptocurrency brokerage and wallet platform in the world, will integrate Ripple.
“Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse & Coinbase President Asiff Hirji will be appearing on CNBC’s ‘Fast Money’ on Tuesday 6th March. After months of suspense between the possibility of an XRP in Coinbase listing, this finally could be done,” one trader said, echoing the viewpoint of most Ripple investors.
According to Cryptowat.ch, long positions on the Ripple-to-USD futures market on the Bitfinex trading platform have also surged in volume, due to the community’s anticipation of Coinbase’s Ripple listing.
However, this anticipation could also lead to a large drop in the price of Ripple if Coinbase ends up not integrating Ripple, as it did last year, when similar rumors emerged.
It is unlikely that Coinbase will integrate Ripple this week, given that it is still dealing with class action lawsuits regarding insider trading allegations against Coinbase employees.
Ran Neuner, the host of CNBC’s popular cryptocurrency show CryptoTrader stated:
I think it’s time to short XRP again. pic.twitter.com/7ByDeS8pTZ
Stall
As of current, the entire market is being stalled, due to lack of volumes. The valuation of the cryptocurrency market has continued to move in between the $400 and $500 region, without demonstrating strong momentum. Bitcoin has struggled to move past $12,000, and has been extremely volatile in the $11,000 region.
It is still important to acknowledge that the price of bitcoin has recovered from $8,500 to $11,500 within the past week, since February 27. Since dropping to $6,000, bitcoin has also nearly doubled in value.
Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani of Goldman Sachs stated that analysts at the bank studying cryptocurrencies are high in demand due to the increasing interest towards cryptocurrencies from institutional investors and retail traders.