Solana Surpasses XRP Becoming the Fifth-Largest Cryptocurrency

By: Eliza Bennet

Solana has taken over the position of the fifth-largest cryptocurrency in the market, leapfrogging XRP, previously closely associated with Ripple. This new standing as noted on Dec. 20, is effective based on recent statistics.

At the time of reporting, Solana (SOL) presented a market capitalization of $34.8 billion, surpassing XRP's market cap of $33.3 billion. It's important to note that Solana's impressive performance seems not to be a result of XRP's losses but rather SOL's remarkable gains.

Solana posted gains of 12.08% over 24 hours, significantly outperforming the market average which stood only at 2.8%. At this time, SOL was priced at $81.45 while XRP stood at $0.62. This price differential is a result of the native token's values and does not reflect the market cap or the standing of each cryptocurrency.

While the reasons for Solana's price spike aren't very clear, it's possible that this is a continuation of SOL's steady growth, which has been noted since as early as October. Several factors may have contributed to this upward trend, including the hype around the Solana-based Bonk meme coin, significant transactions involving SOL tokens, and the launch of Solana's Gameshift suite.