In a surprising turn of events, Ripple’s XRP is up 140% this week, making it the biggest top ten gainer of the past seven days.
There’s no denying that XRP is a divisive token that draws criticism on multiple fronts. Recent blasts include the uncertainty bought about by the SEC’s indecision over XRP as a security and condemnation over its practice of XRP dumping, which stopped at the end of 2019.
The situation wasn’t helped by almost two years of price decline and stagnation. In fact, during this period, XRP holders became the laughing stock of the crypto world.
However, that changed last week when XRP managed to crack key resistance at the $0.33 level. Since then, Ripple’s native token has rallied hard, hitting $0.80 on Bitstamp today. With Coinbase registering a peak at $0.92.
Source: XRPUSD on tradingView.com
The move was enough for XRP to leapfrog Tether and take the third spot on CoinMarketCap and by some margin. Currently, the difference in market cap between the two is $13.6 billion.
Source: CoinMarketCap.com
@TraderLenny commented on the shocking turn of events by congratulating Ripple.
“Honestly, who would’ve thought that $XRP would be the best performing high-cap during the last 7 days; and it’s not even close. It’s leaving both $BTC and $ETH far behind. Never thought I’d say this but: Impressive stuff #Ripple.
Just like that, in a matter of two weeks, talk of XRP revisiting its previous all-time high of $3.30 isn’t outside the realm of possibility.
However, it remains to be seen if XRP can sustain this form. After all, two years of price stagnation, in which XRP showed little fight, doesn’t disappear in just two weeks.
Series of Incentives Announced to Sustain the XRP Network
The up and coming Spark token airdrop from the Flare Network is welcome news for XRP holders.
“The Flare Network is a smart contract platform that aims to increase the usability of various digital assets by making it possible to use these digital assets in its smart contracts. Flare will be based on the Avalanche protocol and will integrate the Ethereum Virtual Machine. The resulting network aims to be scalable, safe and decentralized.”
Up for grabs are 45 billion Spark tokens for distribution across participating self custody wallets and these supporting exchanges.
A snapshot on December 12 will determine the distribution of Spark tokens on a 1:1 basis. All registered XRP holders, except Ripple Labs employees, can claim.
Also, as part of Ripple’s Community Support Outreach Program, the firm will distribute 5 billion XRP tokens to whitelisted addresses.
“As for the incentive payout system, until further notice, the reward payout is a percentage between 5 – 27% of your current XRP balance. This percentage is final, a whitelisted address will receive its generated percentage and no more or less XRP; dual or multiple whitelisting is not possible.”
This move was likely prompted by criticisms of XRP being a 100% pre-mined token, with only the founders benefiting from its inception.
Whether that’s the case or not, it’s clear that Ripple is making moves to foster a fairer ecosystem for all stakeholders.
The question is, is this enough to reinvigorate XRP for the long haul?
