Once again, Ethereum (ETH) has reclaimed its position as the cryptocurrency with the second highest market cap. We know that in the later months of 2018, we had seen the struggle for the second spot play out between Ethereum and Ripple. After Ripple had toppled Ethereum from its long-standing position initially, Ethereum did attempt brief comebacks.
You May Also Read: Top 10 Cryptocurrencies for 2019
Is this rise also just a temporary comeback? Although of course there is no way to be sure, experts feel that it may not be just that. Instead, it seems to be coming at a time when the market seems stable and well-positioned for a bullish upswing.
As Alex Melen wrote on Twitter on the 10th of February:
“#cryptocurrency Saturday positivity. #Bitcoin, and the entire #crypto market officially broke the falling wedge to the upside. Welcome to the bull market.”
Although Ethereum has successfully taken the second spot from Ripple, Ripple is tailing it quite closely behind. While Ethereum’s market cap is currenty 12.72 billion dollars, Ripple is trailing behind with 12.53 billion dollars. At the time of writing, with data being sourced from Coinmarketcap, Ethereum has also registered a surge in its price. A rise by 1.78 per cent has placed its price in a decent position and it currently stands at $121.41. Given it has a recorded supply of 104.81 million and a volume of 3.18 billion dollars, it is no wonder that its market cap has breached the 12.5 billion dollar market cap and then some.
Over the same period, at the time of writing, Ripple has registered a fall in its price. It fell by 1.69 per cent. Its price currently stands at $0.304236. The market supply of Ripple, which had been the subject of a major controversy recently.
This cryptocurrency, that cannot be mined, has a supply that is controlled by a certain extent of centralization. Last month, Messari, an analytics firm accused the Ripple Foundation of taking advantage of its centralized control and falsely inflating the market supply. Although that is an accusation has been vehemently denied by Ripple, we wonder if we have truly seen the end of this controversy.
Currently, Ripple’s market capitalization is 12.53 billion with 41.17 B being the supply. Clearly, it does owe its market cap to its extremely high market supply. While that is not unlikely for a pre-mined coin like Ripple, Messari’s allegation is still something to be mindful about.
