Bitcoin’s market dominance, or the proportion of the total cryptocurrency market capitalization that the flagship cryptocurrency has, plummeted earlier this week after various cryptocurrencies including $XRP, $SOL, and $ADA started surging.
The sudden decline came in the wake of a U.S. court decision that said $XRP is “not necessarily a security,” in a ruling related to a lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Ripple, a major player in the XRP ecosystem, for alleged violation of securities law.
According to available data, Bitcoin’s share of the cryptocurrency market plunged from around 51.4% to 50.01% at the time of writing after various digital assets rallied amid optimism the ruling may have led to a new “alt season.”
In the ruling, Judge Analisa Torres has said XRP was a security when Ripple sold itto institutional investors years ago, but not when it was sold to the public. The judge’s main argument was that institutional investors who bought XRP from Ripple in the past probably knew it had some features of a security, while investors who got XRP from crypto exchanges didn’t have the same information.
This nuanced interpretation threw a wrench into the SEC’s plan to uniformly classify the altcoin as a security, and could potentially have ramfications for 19 other digital assets the regulator claimed were securities in its lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase.
Some of these assets include $XRP, $SOL, $MATIC, and $ADA, all of which recorded significant double-digit gains after the ruling was out, significantly outperforming the flagship cryptocurrency.
Notably, these digital assets have also recently been featured on CCData’s ESG Benchmark report, which notes Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) mandates are “increasingly prevalent amongst institutional investors and funds,” with global ESG-related assets under management forecasted to reach $33.9 trillion by 2026
Per the report, Ethereum was the only digital asset to achieve an AA grade in the ESG Benchmark, and it was followed by Solana, Cardano, Binance Coin ($BNB), Aptos ($APT), Polkadot ($DOT), $DAI, $XRP, and Tezos’ $XTZ, all of which managed to get an A rating.
Uniswap’s UNI, Cosmos ($ATOM), Polygon ($MATIC), and Algorand ($ALGO) were, along with $EOS, among the digital assets that followed with a BB rating.
Featured image via Unsplash.
