The Ripple (XRP/USD) price popped during the weekend as investors watched the ongoing circus between Ripple Labs and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The XRP price popped to a multi-week high of $1.2290, which was about 42% above the lowest level in September.
Ripple Labs and SEC case
In December last year, the SEC filed a major lawsuit against Ripple Labs and some of its top officials. The core of the case is about whether XRP should be classified as a security or a digital currency like ETH and Bitcoin. The SEC argues that XRP is a financial security, which it should oversee.
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The case has continued in the past few months. The biggest delay happened a few months ago when the judge overseeing the case permitted the SEC to continue its fact-finding mission. And in a letter last week, Ripple Labs accused the SEC of its practices during the case.
Precisely, it accused the SEC of not responding to its 30,000 Requests of Admission (RoA) it lodged with the agency. The SEC argues that the RoAs are unnecessary and that it spent more than 100 hours to answer the first 254 requests.
The XRP price also rallied even after a major week in which Stellar Foundation inked a blockchain deal with MoneyGram, the remittances company. The deal will see the company offer USD Coin, a stablecoin offered by Circle. The token is created using Stellar’s technology. It means that transactions in MoneyGram could soon happen in near real-time.
The deal between Stellar and MoneyGram is notable since Ripple Labs has a similar deal with the company. The deal was suspended when the SEC lodged the lawsuit.
The XRP price also rallied in a time when other cryptocurrencies held steady. Bitcoin remained comfortably above $50,000 while Ethereum is above $3,600.
XRP price prediction
The four-hour chart shows that the XRP price has been in a major bullish trend in the past few weeks. Notably, the currency has formed an inverted head and shoulders pattern. And during the weekend, the coin managed to move above the neckline of this pattern at $1.1300. In price action analysis, an inverted H&S pattern is usually a bullish signal.
It also moved above the 25-day and 50-day moving averages. Therefore, the coin will likely keep rising as bulls target the next key resistance at $1.300.
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