In December 2020, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against Ripple and two of its executives.
According to the SEC, the illegality of Ripple’s XRP sales dating back to 2013 was the reason for the action. The sales, according to the SEC, amounted to an unregistered security offering rather than a sale of digital tokens as declared by Ripple.
Despite the seeming length of the case, Ripple claims that XRP investors are still bullish. Is this, however, obvious?
Ripple Is Operating as if It Has Already Lost
In a Recent Interview with Bloomberg Crypto, Ripple CEO, Brad Garlinghouse Spoke about the Ongoing Ripple vs SEC Lawsuit. When asked how the Ripple-SEC case was going Garlinghouse said the case is being closely followed by the crypto community on Twitter because is not just about Ripple but the whole cryptocurrency ecosystem.
In the course of the interview, He was then asked how Ripple would respond if Ripple Fails the battle against SEC, Garlinghouse responded Saying,
“I think that the Howey Test is being stretched beyond recognition again… So, the idea that XRP, which we use as a currency, is a security, I think is, you know, just misguided.
“But look, unfortunately, Ripple is already operating in a world where it’s as if we have lost, right? So, in the United States, XRP has all for all intents and purposes, there’s no liquidity. It’s been halted and frozen on most US based exchanges.
XRP Price Impact After Filing Lawsuit
According to XRP price records, the coin hit its all-time high of $3.34 on January 4, 2018, four years ago. The price of the coin has dropped by 84 percent to $0.53 by the time the lawsuit was filed on December 22, 2020. The price of XRP was $0.06603 at the time of writing, down 82 percent from its all-time high.
The coin’s market capitalization was $31.65 billion at the time of writing, down 4.46 percent in 24 hours. The coin, which had a market price of $20.36 billion when the lawsuit was filed, has seen a 50 percent increase in value.
However, after the lawsuit was filed, XRP trading activity dropped dramatically. On the 22nd of December 2020, XRP was trading at 13.16b, having lost nearly 80% of its trading volume. The cryptocurrency’s trading volume was 2.18 billion at the time of publication.
On-Chain Analysis
The XRP’s on-chain research found that Ripple had seen better days. The token’s development activity has been on a downward spiral since reaching a peak of 69.21 on September 4, 2021.
At the time of writing, it was at 13. In contrast to the coin’s performance on December 22, 2020, which was 5.93, one could conclude it has barely performed well.
The token made little advancement in terms of social status. The coin bled nearly 90% from a Social Dominance of 3983 on December 22, 2020, to 311 at the time of this publication.
Social Volume, on the other hand, seems to have changed wildly throughout the same time period, with several highs and lows. At the time of writing, it was at 313.
Since the suit was filed, XRP has experienced numerous instances of short-term sell pressure. The Supply on Exchange has increased by 6% since the action was filed, standing at 62.65 million at the time of writing.
It’s not a huge jump, but it’s a step in the right direction. Furthermore, there was no major accumulation of XRP because there was no supply rise outside of exchanges.
