"XRP overtook ETH by market capitalization" was the kind of headline that still looked normal eight years ago, in early 2018 when Ripple's "North Star" briefly took the status of the planet's main altcoin away from Ethereum.
A throwback reminder from CoinGecko made the market remember this fact precisely now, in late May 2026, when the balance of power in the top three is again starting to look movable.
Throwback to 8 years ago.
Do you remember $XRP being ahead of $ETH in market cap? pic.twitter.com/4Oir4dplIX
Against the backdrop of Ethereum's governance crisis, liquidity leaving for new protocols, and XRPL's tokenization successes, the historical scenario no longer looks like an impossible fantasy.
Vitalik Buterin's anti-marketing is handing XRP the advantage
While the weekly XRP/ETH chart on Binance shows local consolidation at 0.0006411 ETH, coordination problems are intensifying inside Ethereum. Even network co-founder Vitalik Buterin has already been forced to publicly respond to community criticism over the departure of key developers from the Ethereum Foundation and the falling share of the network in total fees.
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His "anti-marketing" course is strengthening the outflow of investors who are tired of liquidity being diluted across hundreds of L2 networks.
Against this backdrop, Ripple and the XRPL blockchain are taking over a sector that business understands clearly: real-world asset tokenization, or RWA. XRPL is increasingly establishing itself as one of the base platforms for issuing tokenized bonds by commercial banks such as JPMorgan.
Financial flows confirm the difference in sentiment: while investors withdrew $215 million from Ether ETFs last week, US XRP funds stayed in positive territory with $22 million in net inflows.
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However, a third force is now participating in the battle for altcoin leadership. In May 2026, the Hyperliquid ecosystem, or HYPE, found itself in Wall Street's focus. The protocol controls 43% of the on-chain fee market, while the HYPE token is up 77% YTD.
Large capital is reacting to this with direct rotation, as banking giant Goldman Sachs cut its ETH positions by $500 million and XRP positions by $152 million, then entered Hyperliquid Strategies, or PURR.
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