The momentum behind some of the hottest cryptocurrencies in the market continued over the weekend and early in trading on Monday. XRP (XRP 0.82%) continues to be the biggest name moving higher and it's now the third largest cryptocurrency behind Bitcoin (BTC 0.51%) and Ethereum (ETH 1.22%).
As of 12:30 p.m. ET, over the past 24 hours alone XRP is up 36% and has risen 55% since the market closed on Friday. Chainlink (LINK 1.97%) is up 17.6% in the past 24 hours and 22.6% since Friday. Hedera (HBAR 6.10%) is up 45.6% in the last day and 87.9% since the market last closed.
XRP's momentum continues
In the crypto market, momentum can be enough to move a cryptocurrency sharply higher in a short period of time. That's what's happening with XRP on speculation the new Trump administration will be more favorable to crypto.
This is particularly meaningful for XRP, which has spent most of the last four years fighting regulators in court. Ironically, Trump was president when those lawsuits started.
The XRP blockchain is built to disrupt the traditional financial system, so if it's allowed to flourish it could be a win for investors, but it's not clear if that will happen or how that value will flow back to token holders to the tune of the current $164 billion market cap.
Chainlink goes to Europe
21X announced today it is using the Chainlink standard for its tokenized securities and settlement system in Europe. Tokenizing securities is one of the ways the blockchain could disrupt traditional finance and this is a big step toward more tokenization in one of the most harshly regulated places in the world.
Utilities like this are growing for cryptocurrencies, which will help the blockchain, but it's not yet clear if a lot of value will flow back to token holders long-term.
Hedera's big move
The value of Hedera is rising in part because analysts have found big holders are accumulating the token and moving it off exchanges, indicating they may be looking to hold long-term.
Another point of speculation is news Brian Brooks, a board member of hashgraph, has been named as a potential leader of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He doesn't appear to be the leading candidate, but having people close to the president's ear is seen as a good thing for crypto right now.
The crypto bull run continues
The rapid moves in cryptocurrencies recently are reminiscent of late 2021 when the bull market was hot. Tokens would rise rapidly on little more than speculation and momentum with investors fearing missing out on the next run.
A lot of the recent moves have been driven by speculation that a second Trump term would be good for crypto because he will replace hostile regulators in place over the past four years.
While the regulatory environment may be more favorable, remember that cryptocurrencies need to be valuable for something other than trading to generate value. Most utility transactions are taking place in stablecoins today, not native cryptocurrencies, which makes me think the blockchain could become more valuable in the future even if cryptocurrencies themselves aren't. For now, I'm cautious because FOMO (fear of missing out) has taken over and that's historically been a bad time to be a buyer in crypto.
