Most of the cryptocurrency market has gone through a slight correction in the past few hours, but Ripples native token has defied the overall sentiment.

XRP has blasted through its recent yearly high and has tapped an 16-month peak of roughly $0.8.

XRPUSD. Source: TradingView Bitcoin stood well above $92,000 earlier today but has lost over four grand since then and now struggles below $88,000. Ethereum is down from its daily peak as well, dropping below $3,100.

Even the high-flying meme coins have struggled in the past few hours, with DOGE going from $0.4 to under $0.38, PEPE slipping to $0.0000215, and so on.

In contrast, XRP has soared by 16% on a daily scale. As a result, the seventh-largest digital asset tapped $0.8 for the first time since July 2023.

CryptoPotato laid out a few reasons of how XRP could overcome its 2024 high of $0.74 earlier today and it has taken the token just a few hours to do so.

However, the most probable reason seems to be related to the current SEC Chair, Gary Gensler. Reports emerged on X that he had sent an open letter, which suggests that he might be stepping down from his current role as soon as tomorrow.

Bye bye Gary. It seems like Gary Gensler will resign tomorrow!

SEND #XRP TO THE MOON AND BEYOND! pic.twitter.com/pSSl7O2pNI

There were rumors about him resigning circling around ever since Donald Trump won the US presidential elections last week. After all, the Republican promised to fire Gensler on his first day in office.

Such a potential development could indeed be the primary source of XRPs sudden surge. Ripple has been engaged in a legal battle against the SEC for nearly four years or essentially since Gensler took charge. Him stepping down could be quite beneficial for Ripple and other crypto companies that the SEC went after under his tenure, especially if his replacement is someone with a more favorable approach to the industry.