XRP surges 5%, market cap hits $140 billion, surpasses valuations of Nike, Sony, Ferrari, and Starbucks

XRP (Ripple) price climbed nearly 5% on Thursday to $2.48, with its market capitalization soaring to $140 billion. The rally comes after Ripple Labs secured regulatory approval from the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) for its RLUSD stablecoin, marking a significant milestone in its cryptocurrency expansion.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced the approval on X (formerly Twitter), saying, "We have final approval from @NYDFS for $RLUSD! Exchange and partner listings will be live soon – and reminder: when RLUSD is live, you’ll hear it from @Ripple first."



Meanwhile, as of Thursday, December 12, XRP's market cap surged to nearly 5% in the past 24 hours, reaching $139.75 billion, according to data available on CoinMarketCap.

With its recent rise, XRP’s market cap has outpaced the valuations of prominent global companies such as Sony ($128.6 billion), Nike ($115.57 billion), Starbucks ($112.6 billion), Spotify ($97.51 billion), PayPal ($90.23 billion), Dell ($86.75 billion), and Ferrari ($80.92 billion).

Last week, Bitcoin also hit a historic milestone, crossing the $100,000 mark and achieving a market capitalization of over $2 trillion. This surge was attributed to investor optimism around President-elect Donald Trump’s pro-crypto stance.

On December 5, Bitcoin's market cap peaked at $2.03 trillion. However, as of December 12, it slightly eased to $1.996 trillion.

Bitcoin’s market cap is now higher than the GDPs of Mexico ($1.85 trillion), Australia ($1.8 trillion), and Spain ($1.73 trillion). Earlier, Bitcoin also surpassed the market valuations of Saudi Aramco ($1.796 trillion), Silver ($1.791 trillion), Facebook ($1.549 trillion), and Elon Musk-led Tesla ($1.148 trillion), making it the 7th largest asset in the world.

Meanwhile, the global crypto market cap now stands at $3.65 trillion, led by Bitcoin, followed by Ethereum ($472 billion), XRP ($140 billion), Tether ($139 billion), Solana ($111 billion), BNB ($104 billion), and Dogecoin ($61 billion).

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