Can Ripple Ever Overtake Ethereum?

By Prashant Jha

The answer to the question: “can Ripple ever take over Ethereum?” is “yes, it already has”. However, Ethereum owns the second spot after Bitcoin (as per market capitalisation) currently. Will Ripple take over Ethereum again? Let us find out.

Tailing right after the first (both in the order of introduction as well as market cap) and the topmost cryptocurrency Bitcoin, Ethereum occupied the second spot for most part of the last two years. But there have been sporadic threats from Ripple that have grown increasingly dangerous.

You May Also Read: Who Created Ripple (XRP) Cryptocurrency?

Ripple and Ethereum’s Tussle Over Second Spot: A Brief History

For anyone accustomed to checking for prices, market cap details and other relevant statistics with regard to cryptocurrencies on a website like Coinmarketcap would know how, for the longest time, before September 2018, Ethereum was quite a fixture on the second spot.

Ethereum seemed quite safe in this position, before Ripple (XRP) the non-mineable cryptocurrency representative of a new blockchain-based banking protocol, began to spread its wings and soar.

There have been numerous occasions since 2017 where Ripple has overtaken Ethereum. It did so in May 2017 and went on to claim the second spot by jostling Ethereum out in December 2017. December 2017 was clearly the period of the highest growths for all cryptocurrencies and Ripple happened to make the most of it.

At one point during the dream run of December 2017, Ripple saw a massive 42.7% rise in its price, propelling its market cap (a value calculated by multiplying circulating supply by price per unit) to supersede that of Ethereum.

In September 21, 2018, again, Ripple briefly overtook Ethereum. After a short-lived tussle, it managed to come back to that coveted spot just 5 days later on September 26.

Again, in mid-November that year, Ripple overtook Ethereum in the aftermath of the Bitcoin Cash hash wars that had shaken the crypto market.

Ripple managed to retain this position for a while till Ethereum once again took its throne back in the middle of February this year, after showing promise from the beginning of January itself.

Will Ripple Overtake Ethereum Again?

At the time of writing this article, according to Coinmarketcap data, the market cap of Ethereum is 14.48 billion dollars and that of Ripple (which occupies the third position at the moment), has a market cap of 13.09 billion dollars.

Therefore, the difference between the respective market caps of these two cryptocurrencies is 1.39 billion dollars, which is hardly a lot.

The difference between the respective market caps of Ethereum and Bitcoin is far higher and there seems to be a high probability of Ripple taking over Ethereum once again sooner or later. Right now, given there was so much of buzz surrounding the Ethereum Constantinople hard fork, Ethereum itself is growing quite well.

However, that does not mean that Ripple will not take over when the hype dies down.

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Prashant Jha

As a content writer Prashant believes in presenting complex topics in simple laymen terms. He is a tech enthusiast and an avid reader.

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