TL;DR
- Ripple (XRP) neared its ATH while its market cap surged past $190 billion. Analysts see the price rising to as high as $15.
- Bitcoin (BTC) hit $102,000, boosted by market optimism and potential pro-crypto policies tied to Trump’s upcoming presidency.
- Shiba Inu (SHIB) rose 10%, possibly fueled by meme coin market recovery and milestones on its Shibarium network.
XRP Goes Wild
Ripple’s native token has been on fire lately, with its price soaring by 45% in the past week. On January 16, XRP reached $3.39, thus standing just 1% away from its all-time high registered at the start of 2018.
The asset’s market cap briefly surged to almost $195 billion, currently standing at around $191 billion (per CoinGecko’s data). To put things into perspective, well-known corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Walt Disney, and Philip Morris have similar capitalizations.
The potential factors fueling XRP’s substantial rally include recent whale accumulation, hype around the political changes in the USA, growing network adoption, and more. Those willing to dive deeper can find further details here.
Many analysts believe XRP has much more room for growth, claiming that a new ATH is just a matter of time. The popular X user CRYPTOWZRD set a short-term target of $4 and then a possible rise to $8.
Ali Martinez chipped in, too. Earlier this week, he assumed that XRP’s price could skyrocket to $10, while shortly after, he suggested that an explosion to as high as $15 is also possible.
BTC is Back Above $100K
Despite charting less substantial gains than XRP, the primary cryptocurrency is also well in the green on a seven-day scale. Bitcoin (BTC) currently trades at over $102,000, which is serious progress considering the brief plunge below $90K less than a week ago.
Captain Faibik and Mikybull Crypto are among the X users who expect further gains in the near future. The former forecasted a new ATH by late January, whereas the latter believes that exceeding the resistance level of $99K could have initiated “the thrill and euphoria” psychological market phase.
“This is the phase where everything pumps, especially alts,” Mikybull Crypto added.
Meanwhile, the crypto community eagerly anticipates Donald Trump’s inauguration as America’s 47th President, which is scheduled for January 20.
The Republican made numerous pro-crypto promises during his presidential campaign that could benefit BTC and the entire market. Recent reports have also indicated that Trump “plans to release an executive order elevating crypto as a policy priority and giving industry insiders a voice within his administration.”
According to a New York Post coverage, the upcoming president is open to the idea of establishing a cryptocurrency reserve that prioritizes digital assets like Solana (SOL), Ripple (XRP), and USD Coin (USDC). The entities behind those coins are all based in the US.
How’s SHIB Doing?
Lastly, we will touch upon the popular meme coin Shiba Inu (SHIB), which has also made waves recently. Its price has risen over 10% in the past week and is currently trading at approximately $0.000239.
Its resurgence coincides with an overall revival of the meme coin sector where Dogecoin (DOGE), dogwifjhat (WIF), Floki Inu (FLOKI), and many others are well in the green.
SHIB’s pump also comes mere days after the project’s layer-2 scaling solution – Shibarium – hit a new milestone. As CryptoPotato reported, the total number of transactions processed on the network surpassed 800 million.
