What is XRP? The cryptocurrency from Ripple Labs that's been on an incredible streak since Donald Trump's win

The cryptocurrency has gained $100 billion in market cap since the US election. By providing cross-border payment and crypto liquidity services to businesses

A cryptocurrency from Ripple Labs, XRP, has been on an incredible streak since Donald Trump's win.

The cryptocurrency has gained $100 billion in market cap since the US election.

Its market cap, which was valued at $30 billion on November 5, is currently valued at $150 billion.

This, after the price of the token rose 32 per cent to $2.87 on Monday.

But what do we know about XRP?

Let's take a closer look:

What is it?

First, let's take a brief look at Ripple.

As per Investopedia, Ripple is a blockchain-based digital payment company.

It uses the XRP Ledger as its platform and XRP as its cryptocurrency.

It makes money by providing cross-border payment and crypto liquidity services to businesses - like the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) system does for banks and financial firms.

Ripple was founded in 2012 by Chris Larsen, David Schwartz, Author Britto, and Jed McCaleb.

It was originally called OpenCoin. Its current CEO is Brad Garlinghouse.

Interestingly, Ripple does not own XRP - which is an open source cryptocurrency.

XRP was founded by David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb, and Arthur Britto.

The idea behind XRP was to find a solution to the intrinsic limitations of Bitcoin.

The XRP Ledger was launched in 2012 and the XRP token created shortly afterwards.

XRP has a total supply of 100 billion tokens.

It is more cost-effective, has faster transaction times, and is less energy-intensive than Bitcoin, as per the website, as per Investopedia.

Why is the price of XRP increasing?

The price of XRP has been shooting up since Trump's victory on November 5.

According to Forbes, XRP leapfrogged Solana's SOL to become the world's fourth-largest cryptocurrency.

It has since passed Tether to become the world's third-largest cryptocurrency.

Bloomberg quoted Edward Chin, co-founder of Parataxis Capital, as saying that the price increase occurred after people overseas, particularly In South Korea, bought XRP in droves.

Chin said around $60 million in XRP short positions were liquidated over the past 24 hours.

That's more than short liquidations for Bitcoin and Ether taken together.

"The move seems to be entirely retail driven as nothing has fundamentally changed for XRP itself," Chin said. "The move looks to be excessive given XRP is now a top-three digital asset, but that doesn't mean that it can't continue given the reflexivity in this market."

The development also came after Fox Business reported that the New York's top crypto regulator, in a boost for Ripple, may approve the launch of its stablecoin in the state.

Ripple had launched a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar in October - a year after winning a landmark case against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which stated that it did not violate federal securities law by selling its XRP token on public exchanges.

The ruling stated that the token sold by Ripple Labs on public exchanges did not meet the legal definition of a security and the sales of the token were thus not subject to investor protection laws that the SEC enforces.

Stablecoins are digital tokens designed to keep a constant value. They are backed by traditional currencies such as the US dollar or euro.

They can be more suitable for payments and for converting crypto tokens into traditional currencies as they are shielded from the wild price fluctuations seen in Bitcoin and Ether.

Crypto, on a whole, has been on an absolute tear since Trump's election victory.

The market has gained $1.2 trillion in value since November 5, data from CoinGecko shows.

Bitcoin last month for the first time traded near $100,000, while Ether, the world's second largest token, was at $3,613.

Bitcoin has a market cap of nearly $1.89 trillion, while Ether has a market cap of around $436 billion.

With inputs from agencies