XRP Emerges As a New Retail Favorite, Diverging From Bitcoin's Institutional Rally: Glassnode

A prominent cryptocurrency analytics firm highlighted XRP's XRP/USD growing popularity among retail investors on Thursday, contrasting it with Bitcoin's BTC/USD more

Cryptocurrency analytics firm Glassnode shed light on the burgeoning popularity of XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) among retail investors, contrasting it with Bitcoin's (CRYPTO: BTC) more institutionally driven rally.

What Happened: In a recent X post, Glassnode highlighted a striking divergence between the rally paths of XRP and Bitcoin.

Since the 2022 cycle low, XRP has seen a staggering 490% increase in active addresses, whereas Bitcoin has only experienced a 10% rise, signaling "sharp" interest from retail traders, the research firm noted.

Despite similar price gains of roughly 5x to 6x since the 2022 cycle low, the two cryptocurrencies have exhibited distinct trajectories. Bitcoin has shown steady, catalyst-driven growth, while XRP remained flat until a December breakout, fueled by short-term retail speculation.

$XRP has emerged as a new retail favorite this cycle, diverging from #Bitcoin's more institutional-driven rally.

Since the 2022 cycle low, $XRP active addresses are up +490%, while $BTC has only seen a +10% increase - a sharp signal of speculative retail demand. pic.twitter.com/mGRuktUVXK— Glassnode (@glassnode) August 24, 2023

Moreover, XRP's realized market capitalization, a measure of the total capital invested, surged from $30 billion to $64 billion during this period, with more than half coming from investors in the last six months. This signaled that the rally was largely driven by retail traders.

It's also worth noting that search interest for XRP reached 100 earlier in January, according to Google Trends, indicating peak popularity. However, the excitement has considerably ebbed since then.

Why It Matters: This analysis comes as major cryptocurrencies have been holding steady despite turbulence in the stock market.

Bitcoin dipped below $82,000 in the early trading hours on Thursday but recovered to $83,000 by evening. On a broader timeframe, it has been a rough month for the coin, with Bitcoin and XRP losing 5.42% and 18%, respectively.

Bitcoin Price Action: Bitcoin was trading at $82,960.42 at the time of writing on Thursday evening, a 0.85% decline over 24 hours, according to Benzinga Pro.

On a broader time-frame, Bitcoin’s price action can be described as follows:

1 Month Price Total Return: -5.42%

3 Month Price Total Return: +63.05%

6 Month Price Total Return: +131.58%

12 Month Price Total Return: +512.34%

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