The ripple price surged by 49 percent on Thursday as the cryptocurrency markets made a $177 billion recovery from Wednesday’s low-point. Ripple Price Makes 49 Percent RecoveryLike all cryptocurrencies, this week’s market movements have dealt ripple a losing hand. After peaking near $4 earlier this month, the ripple price plunged as low as $0.88 on Bittrex on Wednesday, representing a 77 percent peak-to-valley decline. Thursday, however, demonstrated that the markets do not intend to go down without a fight, and cryptocurrencies rose across the board as $177 billion in capital flowed back into the ecosystem. The ripple price was one of the day’s top performers, rising 49 percent, which enabled XRP to outperform the cryptocurrency market cap index and recover to $1.56. Ripple now has a circulating market cap of $61.1 billion, which makes it roughly twice as valuable as bitcoin cash. XRP Price ChartSouth Korea now accounts for 67 percent of all XRP trading, which may be a new all-time high. A plurality of that volume is concentrated on Bithumb, but Upbit has emerged as a major force within the market and currently ranks as the world’s largest exchange with a 24-hour volume in excess of $8.3 billion. These exchanges currently price XRP as high as $1.87, which represents a 20 percent premium over the token’s equivalent value on Western exchanges. Source: CoinMarketCapFactors Behind the Ripple Price RallyThe primary driver of this rally is the market’s general upswing, but several factors enabled XRP to outperform other top cryptocurrencies. Most importantly, yet another South Korean regulatory agency has spoken out publicly against the Justice Ministry’s proposed cryptocurrency exchange ban. The chairman of the country’s Fair Trade Commission said yesterday that he believes a blanket ban is “not realistically possible” and that the government does not have the authority to make such a policy change. Given the heavy concentration of XRP trading in Korea, this announcement understandably had an outsized effect on the ripple price. Additionally, South Korean bank Woori Bank announced that it would conduct a second pilot program using Ripple’s enterprise blockchain. Although the trial will not include the use of XRP, these trials nevertheless seem to have a positive effect on the ripple price. Featured image from Shutterstock