Gary Gensler's Departure Talk Fuels XRP, 'Meme Coin' Play Powers Litecoin As Action Shifts To Lagging Altcoins

 XRP and Litecoin racked up impressive gains Thursday even as blue-chip cryptocurrencies took a breather.

What happened: Payment-focused cryptocurrency XRP emerged as the best-performing cryptocurrency in the last 24 hours, surging nearly 18%. 

The coin's trading volume soared 50% to $10.54 billion, making it one of the most traded cryptocurrencies in the last 24 hours.

The rally followed SEC Chair Gary Gensler's remarks suggesting he may be ending his stint. 

Cryptocurrency	Gains +/-	Price (Recorded at 10:30 p.m. EDT)
XRP (CRYPTO: XRP)	+17.94%	$0.8199
Litecoin (CRYPTO: LTC)	+8.59%	$81.57

Ripple Labs has been locked in a nearly four-year-long legal battle with the SEC over the status of XRP, the coin at the center of the company's operations.

With the latest upswing, XRP's weekly gains nearly hit 50%.

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Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) hard fork Litecoin was also among the top gainers, surging over 8% in the last 24 hours. The proof-of-work (PoW) cryptocurrency topped $84 for the first time in over five months. 

The jump came in response to a rather bizarre post by Litecoin's X handle, declaring that it identifies itself as a meme coin. 

While the objective may have been to humorously contrast LTC’s lackluster trajectory with that of meme currencies, it seems that the bait worked.

Due to current market conditions I now identify as a memecoin.

— Litecoin (@litecoin) November 14, 2024

The uptick observed for XRP and LTC was in contrast to the corrective price action of Bitcoin and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) on Thursday.

Year-to-date, XRP's gains improved by 33%, while LTC continued to be a laggard at 12%. In comparison, Bitcoin was up over 108%, while Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) and BNB (CRYPTO: BNB) rose 105% and 99%, respectively.

Image via Shutterstock

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