XRP trades steady at $0.50 as Ripple shares plan to expand services in Africa

• Ripple Managing Director of Africa Reece Merrick said that the firm plans to expand into crypto-native services such as custody. 
• The payment firm plans to expand in Africa by supporting the XRP Ledger program in the region. 
• XRP is hovering around $0.51 on Friday, broadly unchanged from a day earlier. 

Ripple (XRP) hovers close to $0.51 on Friday, above the psychologically important $0.50 level, as traders await the court ruling of the lawsuit against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and amid new commitments from the firm to expand its services in Africa. 

While Ripple and XRP are best known for payment-remittance services, the firm said it is eyeing expansion into crypto-native services like custody. 

Daily Digest Market Movers: Ripple plans to expand services to Africa

• Cross-border payment remittance firm Ripple has plans to roll out XRP Ledger and crypto-native services, such as custody, in Africa. Reece Merrick, Ripple’s Managing Director for Middle East and Africa, said the firm is best known for payments but plans to step into “crypto native services” like custody. 

• Ripple has plans to support the XRP Ledger program in the Middle East and Africa region, in addition to other services provided by the firm. 
• The payment firm is battling allegations of unregistered securities sale in the SEC’s lawsuit. The legal battle has weighed heavily on XRP price in the past few years and the token’s holders are awaiting the court’s ruling on the lawsuit. No date has been set for the ruling, which concerns the penalties Ripple should face for its sales of XRP tokens to institutional investors, as a judge already ruled in 2023 that other types of sales couldn’t be treated as sales of securities. 
• The SEC alleges Ripple should pay around $2 billion in fines for its institutional sales of XRP, while the firm argues that the figure should be around $10 million. 

Technical analysis: XRP hovers around $0.51 

Ripple eyes return to $0.53, the 50% Fibonacci retracement level of the decline between the April 9 top of $0.6431 and the April 13 low of $0.4188. The altcoin has hovered around $0.51 for nearly the entire week. 

At the time of writing, XRP price is $0.5155 on Binance. In an upside scenario, the altcoin could climb towards the psychologically important level of $0.60 and face intermediate resistance at $0.53 in its rally. The Moving Average Convergence Divergence indicator supports the thesis of gains in Ripple as the MACD line crossed above the signal line, a bullish sign, and the green histogram bars move above the neutral line. 

Relative Strength Index RSI is 47.33, close to the neutral zone. 

RSI/USDT 1-day chart 

Looking down, a close below $0.5045, the 38.6% Fibonacci retracement level of the aforementioned decline, could invalidate the bullish thesis. In that case, XRP could sweep liquidity at the May 13 low of $0.4866. 

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