XRP Rises More Than 30% as Altcoins Piggyback on Bitcoin's Wave

XRP has surged to 16-month highs, leading a pack of cryptocurrencies all benefiting from bitcoin's rally toward historic levels.

XRP, the native asset of the XRP ledger, developed by payment-focused blockchain firm Ripple Labs, climbed to as high as $0.437564 before retreating to $0.413853 at press time, reaching the highest price point since July 2019, according to the CoinDesk 20.

The third-largest cryptocurrency by market value has gained over 33% in the past 24 hours, extending the year-to-date gain to 116%.

Other alternative cryptocurrencies such as ether, litecoin, cardano, bitcoin SV, EOS, tezos and tron are also flashing green. Most of these coins have picked up a bullish momentum in the past few days, seemingly tracking bitcoin's fast move toward the record high of $19,783 reached in December 2017.

"Altcoins are high beta assets and usually move in the same direction as bitcoin, but more," trader and analyst Alex Kruger tweeted on Friday. Alternative cryptocurrencies can be considered as leveraged bitcoin plays, according to Kruger.

Bitcoin, the top cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has charted a steep rally from $10,000 to nearly $19,000 in the past eight weeks.

At the currency price of $18,736, bitcoin is a little over 5% from setting a new lifetime high, while XRP is still down about 89% from its record high of $3.84 set in January 2018, according to data source Messari.

XRP and other altcoins may also be rising in reaction to a proposed rule by the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency that would forbid banks to blacklist legal industries – including, presumably, cryptocurrency firms. The proposed rule is likely welcome news to businesses in the space, which have long struggled to obtain, or keep, bank accounts in the U.S.