Ripple price analysis: XRP/USD controlled by speculators; recovery capped by 200-SMA

XRP/USD is changing hands at $0.4577, mostly unchanged on daily basis. The coin reached the local bottom at $0.4240 and managed to recover amid positive momentum on global cryptocurrency market. But the near-term trend remains bearish as long as the price stays below 200-SMA (hourly chart) at $0.4633. Once it is broken, the bulls may count of the extended recovery towards $0.50.

Ripple, a San Francisco-based company, is one of the most valuable start-ups of the recent years' thanks to XRP, cryptocurrency behind the project.  It's is the third largest coin by market value with average daily trading volume over $200M, though, it is plagued by the problem typical for the majority of digital assets - no one uses it except speculators. 

Ripple recently announced another program, called Xpring, to incentivize developers to build XRP-focused software.

“It’s still really, really early days, but we are seeing the vision come to life,” said Asheesh Birla, the head of product at Ripple. “I need to make sure it’s in the hands of the right folks.”

However, at this point, few cryptocurrency projects achieved noticeable results in making people use coins as anything other than an investment.

XRP/USD, the hourly chart