Ripple Forms New Partnership, But Will It Save XRP From 42% Drop?

NOIDA (CoinChapter.com)—Ripple continues to expand its global partnerships while grappling with ongoing legal challenges from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Despite Ripple’s efforts, the price of its native token, XRP, has refused to show any signs of life, remaining range-bound between $0.53 and $0.46 since mid-April 2024. XRP bulls would hope the latest update would shake the token out of its reverie.

However, it is likely that the XRP price will continue crabbing until there is a crucial update in the Ripple SEC lawsuit.

Ripple Partnership With Georgia Amid Legal Issues

Ripple’s vice president of central bank engagements, James Wallis, and representatives from EPAM Systems met with the National Bank of Georgia officials to discuss enhancing financial technology and digitalization.

The collaboration builds on Ripple’s role as the technological partner for the NBG’s pilot Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) project, the digital lari. The NBG meeting aimed to explore potential avenues for collaboration in financial technology.

EPAM Systems, Ripple’s partner, specializes in software engineering services, digital platform engineering, and digital product design.

While this partnership highlights Ripple’s growing influence in global digital currency initiatives, it is essential to temper this optimism with the ongoing legal challenges Ripple faces in the US.

The Ripple SEC lawsuit continues, more than 3.5 years after the regulatory watchdog accused Ripple of raising over $1.3 billion through unregistered securities sales. In July 2023, a court ruled that XRP is not a security when sold publicly on exchanges but is considered a security when sold to institutional investors.

The partial victory provided some relief to Ripple and its community, but significant legal uncertainties remain.

Despite the SEC dropping charges against Ripple’s executives in October 2023, the regulator continues to seek remedies for the alleged unregistered securities sales. The SEC’s pursuit of these remedies aims to address what it views as Ripple’s failure to comply with securities regulations.

This unresolved lawsuit casts a long shadow over Ripple’s ambitions, including the potential approval of an XRP Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF), which Ripple’s CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, views as “inevitable.”

XRP Price Moving Inside Bearish Setup

Meanwhile, XRP price continued moving inside a bearish technical setup called the ‘descending triangle.‘

Market analysts predominantly consider the descending triangle a bearish continuation signal.

The configuration features a downward-sloping upper trendline, which gradually reduces the price action’s highs, and a flat lower trendline, which is a consistent support level the price finds difficult to break.

Moreover, the pattern suggests that selling pressure is intensifying and consistently overpowering the buyers, leading to successively weaker rallies. In this setup, the potential price target is typically gauged by the maximum height of the triangle at its widest point.

Hence, confirming the bearish pattern might result in the XRP price dropping 42% to reach the projected price target near $0.29.

Though the partnership with NBG could attract buyers, it is safe to say that the majority of XRP traders are waiting on a verdict in the lawsuit.