Ripple will be bigger than bitcoin if it hits $7
Ripple, or XRP, would only need to get to $6.57 for its market capitalization to be bigger than bitcoin's.
Price of ripple plunged on Monday.
Ethereum would only need to rise 132 percent from its current price to surpass bitcoin.

Market capitalization has become an obsession with many cryptocurrency watchers.

It refers to the value of the entire digital currency in circulation and is worked out by multiplying the supply of the virtual coin by the price per unit.

With bitcoin, the largest cyrptocurrency by market cap, having a quiet start to the year, many investors are looking at alternative cryptocoins. Ethereum and ripple, for example, have seen fairly strong rallies to begin the year. And many are wondering which one could usurp bitcoin as the biggest cryptocurrency.

Ethereum and ripple have been jostling for the second spot, and that has changed depending on price.

That jostling turned volatile on Monday as the price of ripple tumbled. Bitcoin also fell, while ethereum gained in value.

Ripple's current circulation is 38,739,144,847 digital coins. At Monday's earlier price of $2.49, its market cap was $96.46 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.com. Bitcoin's market cap, meanwhile, was $254.2 billion on Monday.

For ripple to surpass this, the cryptocurrency would only need to get to $6.57. This would require a rise of 164 percent. It rose nearly 36,000 percent last year.

Ethereum has a circulating supply of 96,846,982. Its current price is $1,119, according to CoinMarketCap. Its market cap is $108.3 billion. Ether would need to rise to around $2,700 to surpass bitcoin's value. This would require a 134 percent rally from Monday morning's price, which is smaller than the rise required by ripple.

Both these cryptocurrencies benefit from having larger circulating supplies than bitcoin. It means the price of each digital coin can be lower to achieve a higher market cap. Bitcoin's supply is capped at 21 million with the current supply standing at 16,789,425.

With bitcoin's dominance standing at record lows, and alternative cryptocurrencies seeing big price leaps, it's not inconceivable that either ether or ripple could claim the top spot in terms of market cap soon.

Of course, if bitcoin sees a surge in price this year, it will make it harder for either cryptocurrency to surpass it.

Still, some experts have suggested that ripple has run ahead of itself. Ripple works with large institutions and unlike bitcoin, many of the coins are actually owned by the company. This means it's not as decentralized as bitcoin is.

Since December 9, Ripple has enjoyed incredible growth. In just a few days, it has grown by over 318%. The market cap of $31.2 billion helped edge away Bitcoin Cash to the fourth place for several hours in the past week. Currently, the crypto is fourth after Bitcoin Cash overtook it to take the third place. At the current rate of growth, this is a cryptocurrency to watch in the coming weeks.

The growth of Ripple and its current position
Ripple cryptocurrency is designed to use blockchain technology to speed up cross-border money transfers and bank settlements. At the moment, most of the transactions are facilitated on Swift which is quite old, slow and expensive. The simplicity of this cryptocurrency has attracted financial players and this is what is making it rise at a fast rate.

At the start of 2017, XRP was trading at $0.0065 or 0.00000714 BTC. Its market capitalization then was $230 million. This still qualified the crypto as a big player. The market cap has since reached the $33.3 billion mark. Over the past months, the price of this currency has also gone up steady until December 12 when it started a steep rise. Within days, the price touched a high of $0.8. However, the price of the crypto in BTC rose just marginally from 0.0000148 to 0.0000428 BTC.

Reasons why Ripple is going to overtake Bitcoin

According to Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, the rise of Ripple as a cryptocurrency has been made possible because the market understands it better. He adds that the markets appreciate the realities of digital assets performance in terms of speed and throughput. There is a lot of excitement around about XRP’s potential. This is especially so because it is uniquely positioned to deliver on its promise.

Ripple is designed to work with banks. It claims that banks will save up to 3.76%per payment when they opt to use the crypto. While a segment of the market says the price spike of 46% XRP enjoyed on December 15th was because of the upward trend of Bitcoin, some analysts don’t agree. The rise of Ripple can be explained partly by the general performance of the cryptocurrency market and Bitcoin in particular. However, its partnership with credit card company American Express certainly played a big role. Ripple accounts for only 4% of the global crypto market of $488 billion. The measures taken by the firm will certainly see the XRP’s share rise.

The idea is this. Bitcoin is now only 3x the market cap of ripple.

Meaning if you went in right now and thinking that ripple will triple your investment. That means that it will reach bitcoin heights.

With that. Do you guys believe this could happen?

I am quite pessimistic about this. Because if that would happen either one of this would occur:

Bitcoin will crash as ripple will surpass him and faith on the coin will be gone.

Bitcoin will reach new heights (20-25k) usd and will have a bigger market cap.

I just want your thoughts guys.

Disclaimer: have xrp at 0.6 sold at 0.9 to buy icx. Went back 50% of investment at 1.3 and regretting my decision of not hodling.!