Ethereum Surpasses Ripple to Regain its Second Spot in Market Cap

Ethereum (ETH) managed to regain its second spot from Ripple (XRP) which had overtaken it in November. Now Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap. The continuous bearish trends since mid-November have seen many shuffles and reshuffles in the position of different cryptocurrencies.

Ripple overtook Ethereum in November, amid crashing markets, and maintained its position into 2019, however, the markets showed some solidarity and bulls took charge to stabilize the market a bit.

Ethereum’s Fall & Rise: A brief timeline

Ethereum was one of the worst performers among cryptocurrencies when the market was bleeding profusely. At the beginning of November, Ethereum was trading at around $215, however, by December, its prices fell down to $83, a massive 60% loss in a matter of few weeks. Ripple also lost 45% of its market value in the said timeline, however, it gained 23% when compared to Ethereum, helping it to climb the second spot.

The main reason for the fall was a massive sell-off amid bearish trends and the usual culprit U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). SEC enforced various regulations over ICOs in the said period, creating a sense of panic, making investors to sell off their digital assets. Paragon and Airfox, the two ICOs were busted by the SEC for selling unregistered securities in the US and had to pay back $25,000 in fine along with the funds of investors.

Ethereum network being the hub for new token makers and ICOs, saw many of the ETH coins being sold amid the regulation fears and crashing markets.

What is The Future of Ethereum?

After regaining its second spot entering into the new year, Ethereum would be hoping to maintain the spot and scale further. There are many developments programmes underway which would make the network outperform other assets. The Hard-Fork of the network is scheduled to be on January 16, and people of the community are quite bullish about it.

The supply of the Ethereum will be reduced from 3 ETH to 2 ETH, to make sure the Ethereum network does not meet the same fate as in case of BCH Hard-fork on November 15, which many believed was the catalyst for the bleeding market. Many experts believe the rise in prices would help the network in many ways, be it less pressure on miners or a higher and stable demand for ETH coins.

At the time of writing, ETH was trading at a price of around $153 with a market cap of $161 Billion. It has recovered from its lowest point in years and regained 81% of its losses in 7 days. The data suggest, Ethereum made an increase of 17.1%