XRP’s Massive Week: Near All-Time High Price, ETF Optimism, and SEC vs. Ripple

Excitement around Ripple and XRP has grown since Donald Trump became president-elect in November, signaling a potentially favorable administration for cryptoassets.

That tension escalated last week when XRP came within pennies of breaking its all-time high price record from 2018, pushing Ripple’s stock of the asset to a staggering amount amid other notable happenings surrounding the crypto business.

Here’s what you need to know from a wild week for Ripple and XRP.

XRP is approaching an all-time high

XRP was trading around $0.50 in the days leading up to the November US election. Since then, the token has grown by more than 500% to a current price of $3.15, all the while becoming the third largest cryptocurrency by market cap, overtaking stablecoin Tether in the process.

Thanks to the surge, the token nearly set a new all-time high, peaking at $3.38 on January 16, just $0.02 shy of its all-time high of $3.40 set in 2018 per data from CoinGecko.

Up more than 25% on the week as of this writing, XRP has significantly outperformed its major crypto peers like Bitcoin and Ethereum – although Solana is now showing much bigger weekly gains thanks to the momentum around Trump’s official meme coin launch.

ETF optimism is growing

Some of the demand for XRP can be attributed to the growing optimism surrounding the approval of an XRP ETF. Last week, a report from researchers at JP Morgan indicated that if approved, an XRP ETF could expect to pull in billions of dollars from investors.

This report piggybacks on recent comments from Ripple Labs president Monica Long, who suggested that she believes an XRP ETF will be approved “very soon.”

Ripple’s stock is skyrocketing

The big rally in XRP has boosted Ripple’s holdings tremendously, increasing by around $115 billion since Election Day at the current price

Based on its latest financial disclosures, the firm holds around 4.44 billion XRP and controls another 39 billion XRP in escrow – a total now worth $136 billion at the token’s current price. At the time of the election, this amount was worth about $21 billion.

During the election, Ripple and other notable crypto firms like Coinbase co-led a $300 million super PAC in an effort to improve the regulatory environment for crypto in the United States. So far, the bet seems to be paying off handsomely.

Meme coins rise

After a brief surge in early December, meme coin activity on the XRP Ledger had largely gone quiet until activity picked up again last week.

The activity was led by ARMY, a meme coin based on the enthusiastic followers of the Ripple-linked asset, which jumped to a new record high around a market cap of $107 million. Although the token has since retreated to around a $67 million market cap, it still leads other XRP meme coins in trading volume, which has grown compared to the December rush.

Thanks in part to the meme coin trading activity, the XRP Ledger saw its highest rate of active accounts since December 6, breach of 63,000 on January 16, according to data from XRP Scan.

The SEC is not giving up

Although a friendlier regulatory environment may be around the corner, the current SEC administration is not letting up in its long battle with Ripple.

This week, Ripple Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty noted that despite asking the SEC to delay its opening brief in an appeal against a ruling that favored Ripple, the enforcement agency refused. On Wednesday, the SEC filed the letter asking the court to reclassify the security status of XRP.

“What a waste of time and taxpayer dollars,” he wrote X (formerly known as Twitter).

Despite the frustration, Adelroty remains confident in Ripple’s position, indicating that he looks forward to working with the new SEC leadership to resolve the matter.

Edited by Andrew Hayward