The race for the most popular altcoin continues. Latest developments have seen Ethereum briefly dethroned and again regaining its lead as the largest altcoin by market cap.
Rippleās XRP coin surged close to 20% in 24hrs in the latest bull-run attempt overtaking Ethereum, albeit for a few hours. Latest data from the Coinmarketcap website shows that Ethereum is leading with $22.5 billion market cap while Rippleās XRP trails it with $21.5 billion.
This scenario of a flippening between the two coins has happened more often than once this year. In September, a similar situation ensued where Rippleās XRP soared Ethereumās ether to gain the second spot after Bitcoin due to positive news on the announcement of Rippleās xRapid platform. Yesterdayās rally has not been explained but most are quick to associate it with the rise of Bitcoinās price.
Ethereum has also been on the rise due to several reasons. Just recently, Glen Weyl, the Principal Researcher, Political Economy and Social Technology at Microsoft Research New York was talking about Ethereum and its cofounder Vitalik Buterin which may have sparked an air of positive sentiments within the community. Weyl said,
āIt seems to me that in the same way, the āuse caseā of @ethereum is less any particular technical question and more offering a vision of the future that can save us from returning to the 1930ās next time we hit a recession. I wonder what @VitalikButerin thinks of that.ā
Well Vitalik not being one to shy away from sharing his views responded by giving a sneak preview of what is to be expected in the coming months starting with the Serenity upgrade. According to Buterin, Serenity, which represents Ethereum 2.0 will scale the present blockchain by 1000 fold. Not only that, the soon-to-be-released upgrade is designed to be more secure and more energy conscious. Buterin thinks that
āSerenity is the world computer as itās really meant to be, and not a smartphone from 1999 that can process only 20 transactions a second.ā
Thereās a positive air of optimism in the crypto space currently as most experts are predicting that the market has hit an inflection point and is soon to start rising.