There’s been no bigger beneficiary of President-elect Trump’s pro-crypto promises than one of the oldest and most contentious names in crypto: the digital currency known as XRP . Since the election, the cryptocurrency has surged 370%, while bitcoin has climbed 46% and the broader crypto market, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 index, has gained 93%. During that rally, XRP surpassed Solana to become the third largest cryptocurrency by market value. “The asset that’s been at the front of the Peloton taking the regulatory headwinds has been XRP,” Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise Asset Management, told CNBC. “So if we switch to regulatory tailwinds, it should, almost by definition, benefit the most … it seemed like a rational response.” The latest advance marks a victory lap for XRP’s most vocal supporters, who have remained faithful over the years even during Ripple’s battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Created 12 years ago XRP was created by the founders of Ripple in 2012. It is the native token of the open source XRP Ledger, which Ripple uses in its cross-border payments business – about 95% of which takes place outside the U.S. Ripple is the largest holder of XRP coins. The contest with the SEC ended last summer, when a judge said XRP isn’t a security when sold to retail investors on exchanges, but is an unregistered security offering if sold to institutional investors. Bitwise, WisdomTree and 21Shares have applied to issue XRP exchange-traded funds, and it’s now the third biggest asset behind bitcoin and ether in the CoinDesk 20 index. But it’s unclear how or why XRP has much further to run. “I’ve never been a big fan of XRP the asset,” said Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy Digital, who called XRP today no more than a “blast from the past.” “It’s never really had a clear product market fit, despite a lot of marketing,” he added. “In general, [it has] pretty low flow, [and is] trading at a huge valuation well above some major corporations.” But today the crypto market “is looking for ways to express optimism about the new administration,” no matter what practical difficulties XRP faces, Thorn said. ‘Divisive’ asset Hougan described XRP as a “fairly divisive” asset in the market, but defended its resilience and ability to “sustain community interest” through crypto’s boom and bust cycles. He said that it has a “unique and differentiated” consensus mechanism that’s cheap to run compared to Bitcoin’s proof of work or Ethereum’s proof of state ecosystems, and that it’s successfully sustained for years. The criticism of XRP, he added, is that investors haven’t seen its real-world use cases take off. “It’s rational to argue that for what’s primarily a [business-to-business] style blockchain, it’s hard to develop business use cases when you have a regulatory Damocles hanging over your head,” Hougan said. “But now that’s been removed and we get to see what this blockchain that works, that has an engaged community, that has a strong foundation associated with it, and that has a unique, really cheap to maintain consensus mechanism can do in the business world.” “This technology works and functions with a low underlying cost,” Hougan added. “The core of the investment thesis is we don’t yet know what it can do in a unfettered environment, and that’s what we’ll find out over the next year or two.” A spokesperson for Ripple declined to comment.
