The Ripple price is under pressure after rallying to its year-to-date high last week. The XRP price is trading at $1.3280, which is 32% below its YTD high of $1.9652. The currency has a market cap of more than $60 billion.
What happened: The recent momentum on Ripple has waned as the market continues focusing on the SEC lawsuit. In a report by Bloomberg, the SEC will continue with its lawsuit under the new chairman, Gary Gensler.
The agency asked the judge overseeing the case to dismiss Ripple’s request for internal communication documents. The document accused Ripple of attempting to harass the regulator. Just a week ago, the judge tossed the SEC’s request for documents from Ripple.
The market is hoping that the new SEC chair, who has taught about cryptocurrencies and blockchain, will be lenient. Also, in March, a judge said that XRP has a utility, pushing many to believe that Ripple Labs will win.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal editorial page has accused the agency for causing confusion in the currencies. The editorial noted:
“A next step for the SEC should be to recognize the harm of its current ad hoc approach. Investors and developers deserve to know whether their actions in the market are legal before they read news of the latest SEC lawsuit.”
Ripple price prediction
The XRP price is trading at $1.3390, which is about 20% above the lowest level this week. The price has moved below the 25-day and 15-day exponential moving averages (EMA) and is between the 25-day and 15-day WMAs. The Average True Range (ATR) has also rallied to the highest level in months.
Therefore, in my view, the currency may resume the upward trend as bulls target the next key resistance at $2. For this to happen, bulls will need to move above the 23.6% retracement level at $1.5300. This prediction will be invalidated if it moves below the 50% retracement at $1.0600.
Don’t miss a beat! Follow us on Telegram and Twitter.
XRP chart
Follow Crispus on Twitter.