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Ripple's XRP token underwent a dramatic price surge over the holiday period, climbing to $2.50 before skyrocketing further to $2.87 on Monday. The rally underscores renewed investor interest in XRP, making it one of the fastest-growing cryptocurrencies during the 2024 season, growing 400% in November.

XRP’s market capitalization has now surpassed $154 billion , despite languishing below $30 billion before Donald Trump’s re-election. Overall, the broader crypto market has now grown to a staggering $3.6 trillion , and is only set to continue its rapid growth.

Now the third -largest crypto by market capitalization, XRP’s rapid rally following Donald Trump’s re-election signals shifting market dynamics. The token’s meteoric growth is attributed to strong buying activity from overseas markets, especially South Korea, and the forced closure of losing bets on XRP's price on futures trading platforms. In the past 24 hours alone, millions of dollars of XRP bets against its price (short positions) were wiped out — more than the combined losses for similar bets on bitcoin and ether.

“The move seems to be entirely retail-driven as nothing has fundamentally changed for XRP itself,” Edward Chin, co-founder of Parataxis Capital, told Bloomberg . “The move looks to be excessive given XRP is now a top-three digital asset, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t continue given the reflexivity in this market.”

Ripple Labs was sued in 2020 by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under the administration of current chair Gary Gensler. However, with Trump's re-election, Gensler announced plans to resign on the same date that Trump is set to take office, ushering in a potential shift in regulation at the SEC, which many crypto executives say has taken a hostile tone against crypto firms. Ripple's token is one of the main beneficiaries of the changing administration, with Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse saying that Trump will fulfill his promise to " make crypto great again."