Soon before press time, the cryptocurrency traded around $0.35, marking a nearly 50 percent rise on a 24-hour basis.
As a result, the market capitalization of XRP has increased to $33.88 billion, according to CoinDesk 20 numbers, putting it beyond litecoin as the fourth largest cryptocurrency. Other cryptocurrencies also trade higher, such as bitcoin, ether, and litecoin. Bitcoin soared early today to fresh record highs above $38,000.
Despite the XRP rebound, however, prices are still down 57% from highs above $0.55 observed before the U.S. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against Ripple Labs, the maker of the Ripple payment protocol and exchange network headquartered in San Francisco, for collecting $1.3 billion from institutional investors over seven years via its XRP sales.
The lawsuit, reported on Dec. 22, brought an explosion of exchange delistings and panic sales, causing rates to fall by the end of December to $0.20.
It remains to be seen if the current rebound has legs or turns out to be a "dead-cat bounce"-a transient recovery from a notable fall in asset prices or a bear market followed by a continuation of the downward trend.
The United States, according to experts. The recent decision of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to allow US banks to use public blockchains and dollar-backed stablecoins as a financial system settlement infrastructure is favorable for XRP and the XLM token of Stellar blockchain based on payments.
However, XRP may have a hard time cheering on the good news before it deals with the SEC situation, Denis Vinokourov, head of research at Bequant, a London-based prime brokerage, told CoinDesk on Wednesday.