Ripple (XRP) has become the second major cryptocurrency

Ripple moved Ethereum to third place in the ranking of cryptocurrencies with the largest capitalization and moved to second. The coin has surged more than 100% this month as investors believe banks and service providers will soon default to it when making cross-border payments.

Ripple currently has a market cap of $22.2 billion and ethereum has a market cap of $22.1 billion, according to CoinMarketCap data as of 8:30 a.m. Wednesday New York time. Bitcoin still ranks first by a wide margin, with a total market capitalization of $113 billion.

Ethereum, which is traded through the digital token ether, has seen a big sell-off this year. Many believe this is due to the huge number of altcoins that were built on the ethereum blockchain last year. Ethereum's price is down 84% this year, falling from around $1,400 to $215. Ripple's price has declined by about the same amount, peaking at $3.71 earlier in the year and falling to $0.26 earlier this month. At the beginning of 2017, Ripple's price was just $0.006.

Today's surge, which has pushed the price of XRP up 25% in the last 24 hours, was sparked by US exchange Coinbase's announcement that it was looking to list new coins. Many believed that among these coins there would be a token from Ripple. Nigel Green, founder and CEO of investment group deVere Group, believes the coin's price will rise to $1 by the end of 2018.

Last week's doubling in price could also be due to the company's launch of a new product that could help banks speed up transactions using the XRP token.

According to https://www.forbes.com/