Litecoin briefly flips XRP as 4th largest crypto amid Ripple-SEC spat

Litecoin (LTC) and XRP briefly traded locations in market capitalization rankings over the weekend, highlighting the affect of the latest lawsuit in opposition to Ripple filed by the USA Securities and Alternate Fee.

The so-called “flippening” occurred early Sunday when Litecoin’s market cap hit $9.95 billion following a greater than 12% surge in worth. XRP, in the meantime, had declined in extra of 25% over a 24-hour buying and selling interval. 

LITECOIN JUST FLIPPED XRP pic.twitter.com/yjBq15JtpV

— HODLGeorge (@BitfuryGeorge) January 3, 2021

At press time, XRP was again within the fourth place with a market cap of $10.5 billion. Litecoin, in the meantime, was value simply over $9.9 billion. Within the final seven days, Litecoin’s worth has gained roughly 14% whereas XRP has tumbled almost 20%.

Litecoin’s worth has greater than doubled since mid-December, highlighting Bitcoin’s gravitational pull on the broader market. XRP was additionally on a tear earlier than the SEC introduced a lawsuit in opposition to Ripple for allegedly violating securities legal guidelines. Peak to trough, XRP worth tumbled greater than 73%, based on CoinMarketCap knowledge.

XRP’s highway to restoration is prone to be a bumpy one as buyers await the end result of the litigation — a course of that might take a number of years to play out. And not using a settlement with the SEC, the worth of XRP may battle to regain momentum. A wave of delistings at main exchanges additionally threatens XRP’s rebound potential.

In the meantime, Litecoin’s ascendancy possible has extra to do with Bitcoin than any change within the undertaking’s underlying fundamentals. Cointelegraph highlighted an obvious surge in altcoin quantity in December as Bitcoin’s worth zipped previous $20,000.

The entire market cap of all cryptocurrencies rose to all-time highs over the weekend, peaking at round $907 billion.