XRP started the new week lower, trading at $1.33. Nevertheless, the Ripple blockchain’s native token has remained on a steady path upward in the past few days.
Last week, it climbed to its highest value since January 2018, hitting $1.37 during the weekend session before turning lower on profit-taking sentiment. But on the whole, the XRP/USD exchange rate has added 111% to value since April 4, partially because of recent wins in its ongoing courtroom battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Recent Courtroom Win
The SEC filed the lawsuit against Ripple in December 2020, alleging that it sold XRP.
Since then, the XRP price has shown an extreme correlation with the court proceedings. The token’s latest price soar over the weekend was also due to a federal judge ruling that Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse and former CEO Chris Larsen will not need to disclose their personal financial records to the SEC.
On Friday, District Court Judge Sarah Netburn ruled that SEC did not have sufficient grounds to request those records. She said those claims were not “relevant or proportional to the needs of the case.”
Another significant win for Ripple is the motion to grant the company access to SEC’s minutes, containing their interpretations on XRP. Bulls apprehensively treat it as a significant step forward for the company, as the documents expect to reveal what the SEC thinks about XRP’s top rivals, Bitcoin and Ethereum. Both of those rulings reflected positively on the Ripple token’s price, as it gained 40% in 24 hours on Saturday.
XRP vs. Bitcoin and Ether
The SEC has classified XRP coins as securities and claims that Ripple has sold them illegally. However, the question remains if Ripple is, in fact, security, why isn’t bitcoin (BTC) or ether (ETH)?
Ripple expects to strengthen their case, should the minutes mention XRP as a “virtual currency,” as it crumbles SEC’s claim to view it as a security. That is what serves as the basis of Ripple’s arguments against the securities regulator.
Should there be any contradiction in SEC’s interpretations of different cryptocurrencies, Ripple could gain a legal lead over the regulator, pushing XRP further higher. It is already the 4th cryptocurrency by market cap, after BTC, ETH, and BNB.
Many financial analysts are trying to predict the investment opportunities for XRP, and as one of them stated in his tweet:
“I don’t hate (or love) $XRP. Just objectively speaking, in 7 days, this has done 167%, and the daily just printed a candle that makes me feel like a 10-20% pullback is likely (and wouldn’t make this bearish at all)”.
Photo by Tyler Lastovich on Unsplash
