XRP is one of the handful of crypto-assets that has outperformed Bitcoin in the latest market-wide rally. Traders are placing their bets on a potential victory for the blockchain firm Ripple’s multi-year legal battle against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), with a ruling expected in April.

In the past two weeks alone, XRP was up by 40%.

According to the latest report by Kaiko, XRP trading activity has been heavily concentrated on South Korean exchanges, with volumes on Upbit and Bithumb at times exceeding that of Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Last week, its trading volumes surpassed $2 billion. This is the highest level since Sept 2022. Gauging further, Kaiko found that XRP perpetual futures open interest also surged to $471 million, up from $230 million. Moreover, funding rates flipped positive, signaling that traders were mostly taking long positions.

The report by the Paris-based crypto data provider also pointed out that the sell-side imbalance in market orders of over 200k XRP tokens indicated that whales have indulged in selling into the price rally. With whales taking profit, the latest rally in XRP appears to be retail-driven.

(by Chayanika Deka)