In the last 24 hours, most of the virtual currencies are operating relatively stable. However, the gap that separates XRP and Ethereum (ETH) is getting smaller as time passes. At the time of writing this article, Ethereum has a market capitalization of $14.41 billion, compared to $14.95 billion of XRP. This is a difference of just $540 million.
Ethereum Getting Closer to XRP
A few months ago, Ethereum lost its privileged position in the market as the second largest virtual currency after Bitcoin. XRP experienced a good performance between November and December, allowing it to increase its market capitalization respectively to Ethereum’s market cap. Indeed, the distance between the market cap of these virtual currencies reached several billions of dollars.
Ethereum experienced a bear trend that was triggered by a massive sell-off in the cryptocurrency market. However, this virtual currency had a higher selling pressure from Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) liquidating their assets. At the same time, the Ethereum network was hit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission decided to announce enforcement actions against ICOs that were selling unregistered securities.
At that time, Ethereum reached new year lows close to $83, depending on the exchange. This represented a drop of 93% since its all-time high close to $1,400. Since reaching its lowest point a few weeks ago, Ethereum recovered part of its price when it increased by almost 70% in just a few days.
At the beginning of January, Ethereum has a hard fork scheduled that will reduce the number of ETH received as a mining reward. The Constantinople hard fork is expected to generate a bullish sentiment around this digital asset.
Now, each Ether can be purchased for $138 according to CoinMarketCap. XRP, instead, can be purchased for $0.3674. In the last 24 hours, Ethereum is the top gainer in the market with an increase of 1.99%. After Ethereum, EOS had a good performance (1.27%).
The worst performing digital assets are Bitcoin Cash (BCH) falling 1.73% and Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) dropping 1.48% in the last 24 hours. Bitcoin (BTC) is currently falling 0.42% and it has a market capitalization of $67.62 billion. Each BTC coin can be purchased for around $3,874. Litecoin (LTC) is another virtual currency registering gains among the top 10 in the last 24 hours, growing 0.61%. Stellar Lumens (XLM) fell 0.61%.
