In the cryptocurrency marketplace, the competition for win, place and show has historically been a one-horse race, with
Bitcoin (BTC) always the frontrunner and always the winner by a country mile. But, over the past several months, the market cap between second and third has jockeyed back & forth between
Ethereum (ETH) and
XRP (the native currency of the Ripple network).
ETH, the decentralized app network and cryptocurrency that was once hyped as the
ultimate rival to BTC, has continued to climb after last week's sudden market pump, overtaking XRP to reclaim the number-two spot in the list of the world's largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.
Ethereum’s price has risen about 3% over the past 24-hour period to over US$120 per ETH token – according to the latest data from
Einstein Exchange – as XRP remains flat and the wider market holds onto its gains from late last week. Bitcoin, currently trading at around US$3,722, is up some 5% over the last week after a relatively minor bull run sparked by news of a
Litecoin (LTC)
network upgrade.
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ETH's price uptick, amid a largely flat market, appears to be down to some major moves from large Ethereum holders, as shown by a cryptocurrency whale tracker.
Over the last 24 hours some US$8.5 million worth of Ethereum has been traded by so-called crypto whales, adding to an ETH daily volume of US$3.2 billion. It’s generally considered that cryptocurrency markets remain small enough to be moved by large trades at either above or below market rates.
Ethereum now has a market capitalization of over US$12.6 billion, slightly above XRP’s US$12.5 billion market cap. LTC, which powered to fourth place in the list of largest cryptos last week, has a market cap of just over US$2.6 billion.
At press time, total cryptocurrency market capitalization was US$121.56 billion.
