Ripple News: Ripple’s XRP Struggles Amidst Legal Wins and Market Uncertainty

Ripple News: Ripple’s XRP Struggles Amidst Legal Wins and Market Uncertainty

Ripple News – Ripple’s cryptocurrency XRP, has been underperforming for a prolonged period. Despite this, Ripple has secured two legal victories against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in recent years. However, the most recent ruling pertained solely to Ripple Labs as a company and ended with a settlement, not a full acquittal, leaving XRP itself still entangled in legal ambiguity.

XRP Price Trends

Currently, XRP remains the seventh-largest cryptocurrency globally by market capitalization. However, 2024 has been challenging for XRP, starting the year at $0.61 and now sitting at $0.53. In March, the price briefly surged to $0.74, only to tumble to $0.38 by early July. A rebound followed, pushing XRP back above $0.65 by mid-July. However, by the end of August, it faced more struggles, dropping below $0.60.

Comparatively, XRP hit its lowest bear-market point in June 2022, dipping below $0.30—just slightly lower than its 2024 low. For much of 2023 and early 2024, XRP has traded in a sideways pattern, fluctuating between $0.40 and $0.70, exhibiting high volatility without establishing a clear trend.

Historical Price Trends

A look at XRP’s past performance reveals an underwhelming comparison with previous market cycles. Ripple was launched in 2012 and saw its price peak during the 2017/2018 crypto market boom when it briefly surged above $3.80. Today’s price remains 86% lower than that peak, and XRP has not managed to break the $2 mark since.

However, it’s important not to view that all-time high as a realistic benchmark, as it was driven by an unprecedented speculative bubble. A more reasonable comparison might be the price in October 2017, before the speculative frenzy, when XRP traded at about $0.20. Following that rally, the price fell back to $0.30, where it remained until 2020, dipping briefly to $0.12 during the financial market collapse at the onset of the pandemic.

Excluding the anomaly of 2020, XRP has consistently hovered around $0.30 during bear markets. Even after the 2021 bull run, XRP dropped back to this level, further highlighting its ongoing struggles to sustain upward momentum over the long term.

Ripple’s Legal Wins Against the SEC

Despite XRP’s underwhelming performance, Ripple has notched two significant legal victories against the SEC. In 2023, a court ruled that XRP, when traded on secondary markets, could not be classified as a security, contradicting the SEC’s claims. This victory temporarily boosted XRP’s price to over $0.90, but the gains were short-lived, with the price quickly retreating below $0.60 within a month.

In 2024, Ripple reached a settlement with the SEC in another case, but the outcome did not result in full exoneration. Despite this resolution, XRP has struggled to maintain any sustained price increase, remaining below $0.90 since the settlement.

Future Price Predictions for XRP

Some analysts believe that XRP’s price may not have fully reacted to these legal developments, citing the rapid pace of change in the cryptocurrency market. Matt Hughes, a prominent analyst, suggests that XRP could be poised for a breakout. He points out that the Bollinger Bands on XRP’s monthly chart have tightened to levels last seen in 2017, which often signals an upcoming spike in volatility. According to Hughes, this volatility could push XRP’s price upward.

Other analysts also foresee potential for XRP price growth, although there are dissenting opinions predicting further stagnation. A key factor remains the significant supply of XRP still held by Ripple Labs (over 43 billion tokens out of the total 100 billion supply) which continues to influence market dynamics.