DOT flip: Polkadot overtakes XRP to become the fourth largest cryptocurrency

There have been some big movers as the crypto market rally resumes and Polkadot’s DOT token is among them.

According to figures from leading analytics portal Coingecko, DOT has flipped Ripple’s XRP in terms of market capitalization following a massive gain of 26% over the past 24 hours. This makes it the new fourth largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

The Polkadot token has surged from an intraday low of just below $11 to top out at an all-time high of $14.80 before retreating slightly to $14.45 at the time of writing. The big price move has pushed its market cap to $13.7 billion as reported by Coingecko.

XRP, conversely, has only managed a gain of 3.7% over the past 24 hours which has not been enough to take the cross-border transfer token above $0.30. Its market cap is currently just below DOT’s at $13.5 billion.

Stats from Polkadot’s own platform estimate it has an even higher market cap of $14.8 billion using a circulation figure of just over one billion tokens. Messari crypto stats are very similar to this and they also show DOT having flipped XRP with a $3 billion difference in market cap.

The Binance owned Coinmarketcap is the only site in disagreement as it reports the DOT supply as ten percent lower. CMC was late to list Polkadot, which is an Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain competitor.

Polkadot is essentially a multi-chain protocol which has a number of ‘parachains’ (called shards in Ethereum) and works on its own technology called ‘Substrate’, which is a blockchain framework. The platform is fully interoperable, allowing other blockchains to connect to the network as a sidechain and the blockchain protocol has the ability to process thousands of transactions per second, leading it to be dubbed the latest ‘Ethereum killer’.

The most recent update, which may be driving momentum, was the launch of its Rococo parachain testnet which went live in late December. It is now gaining more partners according to the Polkadot community;

— Polka Warriors (@polkawarriors) January 14, 2021

Other factors driving momentum include the issues with DeFi on Ethereum as demand for scaling intensifies, along with a strong technical market structure.