You're unlikely to hear any crypto investors complaining about the gains posted by the Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) price.
Especially not its performance since Donald Trump won the US presidential election on 5 November.
As you're likely aware, Trump is a big proponent of cryptocurrencies. And the implications of his return to the White House weren't lost on savvy investors.
Here's what I mean.
On 5 November, Bitcoin, the world's first and biggest cryptocurrency by market value, was trading for US$67,811.
At the time of writing, the Bitcoin price stands at US$117,931, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
While that's down from the all-time high of US$123,092 reached on 14 July, it sees BTC up an impressive 74% since Trump's 5 November victory.
And it sees the token commanding a market cap of US$2.42 trillion. That's more than Australia's GDP!
But, as alluded to in the headline, a fast-rising altcoin, and the number three token by market cap, is leaving the Bitcoin price gains wanting.
Any guesses?
Image source: Getty Images
Racing ahead of the Bitcoin price gains
If you said XRP (CRYPTO: XRP), give yourself a virtual gold star.
XRP is intended to facilitate fast, low-cost international payments, and it has a market cap of US$186 billion.
It was one of five cryptos that Trump said would make up part of the US' strategic crypto reserve.
Aside from Bitcoin, the other three Trump named were Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), Solana (CRYPTO: SOL), and Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA).
So, how has XRP been tracking?
Well, on 5 November, you could have bought the token for 50 US cents. Today, XRP is trading for US$3.13. That's a gain of 526%, far outpacing the 74% increase in the Bitcoin price.
Though unlike Bitcoin, XRP's all-time high of $3.84 was reached back in January 2018.
What are the experts saying?
Commenting on the impact of Trump's pro-crypto legislation, Edward Carroll, the head of global markets at MHC Digital, said (quoted by The Australian Financial Review) it provided "an institutional green light to allocate to crypto".
He added:
That's a very fundamental shift in the market because historically, crypto price action has been driven by retail participation… The difference between market dynamic we see today, and previous bull runs in crypto, is that institutional capital is a lot more focused on fundamentals.
And Carroll expects this will offer tailwinds for the Bitcoin price.
"You're going to see significantly less cycling out of Bitcoin into altcoins," he said.
With Bitcoin price volatility falling as more institutional investors buy the token, Pratik Kala, head of research at Apollo Crypto, noted that, "A lot of people are obviously in crypto looking for quick returns, and so they would then start buying tokens down the list."
But he sounded a note of caution for crypto investors looking for those quick returns.
According to Kala:
There's about 25,000 different crypto tokens, of which 99.9% are worthless. They're just tokens for the sake of speculation and gambling… There's probably only about 10 to 15 tokens that have real value.
