As covered extensively by this outlet over the past few days, XRP, the third-largest crypto by market capitalization, has been on a jaw-dropping surge over the past few days and weeks, just like Bitcoin and other digital assets.
Since bottoming around $0.175 in December, the altcoin has rallied as high a $0.281 just today, blowing the socks of investors across the board.
In the past day alone, the cryptocurrency has surged 10% higher, seemingly reacting to BitMEX’s decision to launch a derivative contract for investors to trade the asset at extremely high leverages.
Analysts say that XRP’s surge could lead to a similar increase in the price of another crypto asset.
Could Stellar Lumens Follow XRP Higher?
Stellar Lumens (XLM) is often described as a “relative” of XRP, for the two cryptocurrencies share founders and share a similar premise: to decrease the costs of international transactions and allow for the propagation of ledger-based fintech.
It should come as no surprise that the two crypto assets have a similar price trajectory, as noted by prominent market commentator Ceteris Paribus, who on Tuesday posted the below chart, writing that “XRP and XLM are literally the exact same thing,” showing eerie similarities in the Bitcoin-pairing charts of the assets over the past year.
$XRP and $XLM are literally the exact same thing. pic.twitter.com/Svv5DHBQcG
— ceteris (@ceterispar1bus) February 5, 2020
Ceteris Paribus isn’t the only one that has drawn lines between the two charts. Prominent Bitcoin trader Crypto Rand noted that if Stellar Lumens follows in the path of its cousin in XRP, it will soon explode higher, noting that the cryptocurrency is trading in a bullish ascending triangle formation.
His target for the cryptocurrency is $0.085 — around 30% higher than the $0.065 price point that XLM is trading at as of the time of writing this article.
More entries and analysis: https://t.co/QsoXBhS8Rx pic.twitter.com/tfbCXdjKn3
— Crypto Rand (@crypto_rand) February 4, 2020
The fundamentals may back such a price increase.
In December, the Stellar Development Foundation and Keybase, a crypto-friendly group messaging community and file transfer hub, revealed that it would no longer continue the giveaway of 2 billion XLM—valued in the dozens of millions.
Although there haven’t been any concrete analyses done, cryptocurrency information firm Messari found that the altcoins with the highest inflation rates (Zcash, XRP, and XLM) were performing the worst. With giveaways contributing to cryptocurrency inflation rates, the premature conclusion of the Keybase airdrop may actually result in less selling pressure on the XLM market.
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