In a fresh shake-up, Tether (USDT) stablecoin has once again overtaken XRP in the crypto market rankings. With a market capitalization of $141.4 billion, Tether now ranks as the third largest cryptocurrency, pushing XRP to the fourth spot with a current market valuation of $139.72 billion.
Bitcoin is down again on Friday, having fallen roughly 7% in the last week — but practically every other asset in the top 10 coins by market capitalization (excluding dollar-pegged stablecoins) has declined by twice that percentage or more.
XRP suffered major losses among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization over the last seven days. XRP has fallen 22% in the previous week, dropping from above $3 after reaching a seven-year high earlier this month. It is down 1.42% on the day to $2.41 as of this writing. The decline consequently forced XRP out of the top three cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.
Amid the current market uncertainty, stablecoins are considered a “safe haven,” meant to maintain a stable value relative to a given asset or basket of assets, which may explain Tether’s market valuation increase.
What’s next?
XRP fell for three days in a row since Monday’s bounce, despite increasing attention from ETF providers. XRP declined from Tuesday to Thursday, and at the time of writing, it was aiming for a rebound following a drop that began over the past weekend.
On Thursday, Chicago’s Cboe Exchange filed four different applications with the Securities and Exchange Commission, requesting permission to list and trade spot XRP ETFs from WisdomTree, Bitwise, 21Shares and Canary. Following the successes of Bitcoin and Ethereum last year, major asset managers are now fighting to be the first to introduce XRP ETFs in the U.S.
Amid the recent dip, it seems whales are seizing the opportunity to accumulate. According to crypto analyst Ali, whales snapped up 520 million XRP in the recent market dip.
While Tether presently leads XRP, crypto rankings are always shifting. Whether XRP can reclaim its spot will be watched out for in the coming sessions.
