XRP reclaimed the spot of the world's fourth-largest cryptocurrency as its market capitalization climbed from $90.5 billion to $92.5 billion over the last 24 hours.
In contrast, BNB's market cap dropped from $92.6 billion to $90.8 billion over the last 24 hours as XRP took over it.
XRP's price has risen 2% over the last 24 hours—the highest climb among the top 13 cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Tether's USDT still remain the top three cryptocurrencies with market caps of $1.47 trillion, $279.8 billion, and $184 billion.
XRP is the native token of the XRP Ledger, a blockchain network developed by some of the team behind Ripple Labs that was launched in 2012.
As per the latest data, the number of non-empty wallets on the XRP Ledger has hit a record high.
The onchain analytics platform Santiment revealed on March 16 that for the first time in its history of more than 13 years, XRP Ledger now has more than 7.7 million non-empty wallets.
In fact, March 16 closed with a 5-week high of 46,767 active addresses.
The same day, XRP's price reached $1.60—it's the highest price point for the cryptocurrency since it hit $1.64 on Feb. 15.
Nonetheless, XRP is still trading around 60% lower than the all-time high (ATH) of $3.65 that it hit on July 18, 2025.
As the legal case surrounding the regulatory status of XRP got settled last year, it was expected that the cryptocurrency would hit new highs, but it hasn't happened so far and a part of the blame goes to the flash crash on Oct. 7 last year.
XRP was exchanging hands at $1.51 at the time of writing, up 2% over the last 24 hours.
This story was originally published by TheStreet on Mar 17, 2026, where it first appeared in the MARKETS section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.