The cryptocurrency market has added $14 billion to its total market cap in the past 24 hours, largely driven by a surge in interest in XRP.
The Ripple-owned cryptocurrency has been steadily growing in value over the past few days, finally reaching over 50 percent in gains yesterday. It is currently up 40 percent over the past 24 hours, trading at $0.46 up from $0.32 yesterday.
The spectacular price increase is largely driven by speculation fuelled by rumors regarding the upcoming release of Ripple’s xRapid product. However, XRP/USD shorts are also at an all-time high, indicating a widespread lack of trust that this price will hold.
The rest of the market is also seeing significant gains, with Ripple’s main competitor Stellar (XLM) enjoying 15 percent gains and Cardano (ADA) up 17 percent, overtaking privacy coin Monero (XMR) for 9th position. EOS is up almost 10 percent and Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) up 7 percent each. Only poor old Bitcoin (BTC) is lagging behind, with a meager 2 percent gain.
SEC Delays Bitcoin ETF
It’s possible that the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s decision to delay the upcoming VanEck/SolidX Bitcoin ETF is why Bitcoin didn’t soar along with its compatriots but at least it didn’t cause a slump as previous negative decisions have. However, it’s also possible that a ‘delay’ rather than an outright rejection has been perceived by the crypto community as positive.
The SEC has now delayed the decision until December 29 this year. The recent addition of Elad Roisman to its board of commissioners was seen as a positive sign, as the commissioner is in favor of supporting fair cryptocurrency regulation.
