In a significant change to the crypto hierarchy, XRP has regained its long-held place as the third largest digital asset by market cap. The token surged this week, pushing its total value to approximately $158 billion, just edging past Binance’s BNB coin at $156 billion. This “flippening” comes as a surprise to some, as BNB had a stellar October, but a closer look at XRP reveals a surge driven by smart institutional moves, even as everyday traders seem to be panicking.
A Tale of Two Tokens
Recently, a sharp contrast in performance has emerged. At press time, XRP was trading around $2.63, with a strong gain of 3.43% on the day; considerably gaining 12.8% over the last 7 days. BNB was trading at $1,123.71, only gains of 0.55% daily and 4.35% weekly. It is evident that the gap in performance reflects XRP’s strength with regard to short-term momentum.
XRP’s rally is particularly impressive in light of BNB’s good fortune as it may have benefited from a pardon by the now-indicted President Trump, boosting investor confidence in the Binance ecosystem. Additionally, new buy and sell listings were each a big plus for BNB on reputable US-listed exchanges such as Coinbase and Robinhood. XRP’s capacity to defy this powerful momentum is indicative of the motivations pushing the asset up to the current highs.
The Evernorth Catalyst: A Bullish Billion-Dollar Bet
What is the other reason for the XRP’s acceleration in strength than confidence in the whole market? One very strong reason is that Evernorth, a new digital asset treasury (DAT) focused on XRP, has been strategically launched. There has already been great attention drawn to this initiative backed by Japan’s SBI Group, who is planning to raise over $1 billion by merging with a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) who will be then looking to use the proceeds to purchase XRP “at scale.” They are creating a large pool of XRP to be institutionally listed and loaned out for lending and liquidity provisioning. Additionally, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen transferred 50 million XRP, worth about $120 million, from his personal holdings. This caused fear of a sell, but it was later clarified that this was a strategic investment into Evernorth. The market is not interpreting this as a dump but instead, the capital raised for the fund will seed the fund and lock away XRP supply, making it available for long-term institutional demand—definitely a bullish indication.
Retail Panic vs. Institutional Confidence
Notably, the institutional confidence greatly opposes the attitude of small retail traders. Analytics company Santiment indicates rising fear, uncertainty, and doubt among social media users, as small wallets are selling, driving sentiment to its lowest point in around nine months. A panic seems to be induced by the misunderstanding of Larsen’s transfer being interpreted as a cash out.
Santiment’s analysis, however, flags this as a classic contrarian indicator. They characterize the present climate as a “fear-buy” event. While retail is fear-selling, larger holders (“whales” and institutions) seem to be accumulating quietly. Santiment cites that whale selling has recently been negligible (about 70 million XRP) compared to XRP’s whopping $158 billion market cap, proving that the smart money is buying the fear-sell dip from retail.
Ripple’s Expanding Ecosystem
Evernorth is not the only positive development for XRP. Ripple is also continually growing its ecosystem and pursuing more widespread adoption. A decision from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on several applications for a spot XRP ETF is still pending. Approval could unlock significant institutional inflows, similar to what happened with Bitcoin ETFs.
Moreover, Ripple’s stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar, RLUSD, is gaining popularity at a rapid pace. It has been reported that it has a market cap approaching $1 billion, which underscores increasing use and activity on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) for payments and decentralized finance.
What’s Next for XRP? A Look Ahead
With a strong institutional foundation demonstrated through the Evernorth initiative, and all the potential catalysts in terms of ETF news may suggest that this recent price action in XRP may be more than just a short-term event. Inflows into XRP-related institutional products are reported to have been nearly $74 million last week alone.
Analysts will be watching for key support levels above the $2.50-$2.60 level, and some are calling for an upside target at the end of October around the $2.80 level. From these current levels, further catalysts will see estimates rising towards the end of the year with $3.5 being achievable with increased inflows from Evernorth or please ETF news. While there may be a continued battle for the third spot in rankings, XRP has momentum at the top.
