News

Law

Asset Management

Investment Banking

Wealth

Hedge Funds

People

Newsletters

Events

Lists

Trading

Ripple stalks bitcoin for cryptocurrency dominance

Ripple’s XRP coin has surged roughly 55,000% since the end of December 2016

Ripple stalks bitcoin for cryptocurrency dominance

The virtual currency known as Ripple coins soared to a record on Wednesday, solidifying a rally in the world’s No. 2 digital asset and closing in on bitcoin for dominance of the nascent industry, MarketWatch reports.

Ripple has surged about 150% over the past week, with a single coin valued at $3.50 trading at intrasession record, according to research site CoinMarketcap.com. That puts San Francisco-based Ripple Labs’s total value at about $135bn. However, factoring the total supply of Ripple coins, including some 55 million Ripple coins held in escrow by its executives, the total value of Ripple is about $350bn. That technically exceeds bitcoin’s value, which is at $254bn at a price of about $15,200.

WSJ Logo