Polkadot's DOT is now the fourth largest coin in terms of market cap, surpassing XRP

Polkadot's DOT token has become the fourth-largest coin in terms of market capitalization, surpassing the embattled XRP.

DOT's market cap currently stands at around $13.45 billion, according to tracker Coingecko. XRP's market cap, on the other hand, is at about $13.28 billion. The sharp rise in DOT's price in recent days, about 50% in the last seven days, has pushed its market cap to higher levels.

DOT is currently trading at around $14, while XRP is at about $0.30, according to CoinGecko.

Source: CoinGecko, The Block Research

Source: CoinGecko, The Block Research

Polkadot is a proof-of-stake blockchain network and a challenger to Ethereum. The protocol was created by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood and went live in May of last year. It claims to fix Ethereum's scalability and interoperability issues.

As The Block Research's John Dantoni wrote yesterday, Polkadot has become the most popular alternative to Ethereum for decentralized finance (DeFi) investment purposes. From September to November 2020, roughly 19% of DeFi projects that received venture funding were building on Polkadot.

Dantoni also mapped out Polkadot's ecosystem and found out that a total of 127 projects across sixteen different verticals are currently building on the network.

Meanwhile, XRP has been under pressure since its issuer Ripple is fighting a legal battle with the U.S. government. Last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that Ripple and two of its executives — CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen — engaged in sales of unregistered securities. XRP's price is down by about 35% since the lawsuit, affecting its market cap. The digital asset is currently trading at around $0.30 per token.