XRP Price Soars 80% Following Ripple’s Response to SEC Charges

There are no boring days on the cryptocurrency market, and that’s particularly true for this week. After the GameStop saga, Dogecoin’s pump, and Elon Musk putting Bitcoin in his bio, it appears that it’s now XRP’s time to shine.

• The price for Ripple’s native cryptocurrency, XRP, has increased by as much as 80% in a few short hours. Less than 12 hours ago, the coin was trading at around $0.28 but has since surged to an intraday high of $0.51 for an increase of about 80%.
• The price has since corrected to where it’s currently trading at.

• This comes on the day when Ripple sent its response to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
• As CryptoPotato reported earlier in December, the watchdog has filed a lawsuit against Ripple for conducting an unregistered sale of securities, implying that XRP is not a currency or a commodity, but rather security.
• The price has since plummeted, but today it seems to be attempting a recovery.
• As part of its defense, the company says that:

“In 2015 and again in 2020, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and US Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) determined that XRP is lawfully used and traded in the marketplace as a virtual currency. Those determinations are consistent with the economic reality that XRP functions as a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account – not a share in Ripple’s profit.”

• • In any case, the current surge has also led to the liquidation of more than $84 million worth of short and long positions on XRP across the major exchanges in the past hour alone.