It's certainly possible. You have to recognize that there is a massive difference between the total supply (or whatever "circulating supply" is listed on Coinmarketcap) and the supply on the exchange market.
That 38.7B isn't particularly meaningful. Earlier this month, Ripple Labs placed 55 billion XRP in a cryptographically-secured escrow account for "supply predictability." This was just a marketing gimmick to pump the market. "Look, everyone! Half the supply is now off the market. The price should at least double now!"
But those 55 billion XRP were never on the market anyway. What happened recently is that demand spiked into a thinly traded market. The recent 4-5x price increase is due to the fact that there are much, much less than 38.7B on the market. In a bull market, the whales remove remove supply from the order book, letting retail investors pile in at high prices.
If you want to be ahead of the learning curve in crypto, you should plan on devoting multiple hours a day to researching the tech, as well as market structures and sentiment. I believe this knowledge will be invaluable in the coming years as adoption increases. I generally think that newbies should stay away from day trading. Longer term holds tend to be more profitable and less frustrating to inexperienced traders.
Yeah I'd have to follow this stuff like a religion to be honest. It's like a new thing to learn in life, if worth it or not you know?