Ripple's market cap overtakes Solana's as XRP becomes fourth most valuable crypto token

Ripple's XRP token has continued its historic recent surge, overtaking Solana's market capitalization to become the fourth most valuable crypto token, price data shows. 

The price of Ripple's XRP has risen over 11% in the past twenty-four hours, according to The Block's XRP Price Page , surging to over $2.18 USD as of 3:00 EST on Sunday, its highest level since early 2018, when the token hit its all-time high of $3.40. XRP's market capitalization is currently nearing $121 billion, compared to Solana's $112.2 billion; the latter token has fallen about 1.5% in price over the past day. 

XRP has recently outperformed The Block's GMCI 30 index , which tracks the performance of the top 30 crypto tokens on the market, which is up 1.30% over the past 24 hours. The index has risen over 64% in the past month, bolstered by Trump's victory in the recent U.S. Presidential election. 

XRP's price is likely also responding to SEC Chair Gary Gensler's announcement that he will be departing the agency in January following Trump's inauguration. Ripple and the SEC have been in a long-standing legal battle that started in 2020, after the agency accused Ripple of raising $1.3 billion through the sale of XRP, which it viewed as an unregistered security.

Investors are also eyeing the potential future launch of spot XRP exchange-traded funds, as several financial institutions are hoping to bring such funds to the market following the approval of spot Bitcoin and spot Ethereum ETFs this past year. Applications for several such funds have been filed for tokens such as Solana , and some analysts have predicted that applications for a Dogecoin ETF could soon follow.