XRP gains amidst crypto market recovery, futures ETFs approval
- XRP climbs on Monday as traders digest the news of the SEC’s approval of ProShares XRP futures ETFs and their debut later this week.
- Bitcoin hovers around $95,000 amidst a market-wide recovery in crypto prices.
- Ripple President Monica Long killed the speculation surrounding an IPO.
XRP climbs over 3% on Monday, hovering around $2.33 at the time of writing. The rally is likely catalyzed by key market movers like XRP futures Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) approval by the US financial regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and a bullish outlook from technical indicators amid a broader crypto market recovery.
XRP holders awaited an announcement from Ripple regarding an IPO in 2025. However, Ripple President, Monica Long, ended the speculation on the subject and affirmed on Thursday that the payment remittance firm has “billions of dollars in cash,” and is financially strong.
SEC greenlights ProShares futures ETFs, traders await spot approval
The SEC greenlighted the ProShares Trust’s launch of multiple XRP futures ETFs, with the effective date set for Wednesday. Traders are awaiting the approval of spot ETFs, and the wait may be longer than anticipated in the US In Brazil, however, the first-ever XRP spot ETF made its debut on the main stock exchange B3 on Friday, according to an official press release.
SEC approved the ProShares UltraShort XRP ETF, ProShares Ultra XRP ETF, and ProShares Short XRP ETF; all three products are designed to provide leveraged and inverse exposure based on the price of XRP futures.
No IPO plans, Ripple holds billions of dollars in cash
Addressing the speculation that financial giant Ripple will go public in 2025, President Monica Long told CNBC in an interview that the payment remittance firm is financially strong and has no plans to go public.
In an episode of Beyond the Valley on Thursday, Long told CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal that Ripple has plans for its stablecoin push and the real-world asset tokenization narrative.
Ripple has no need for external capital to follow through with plans in 2025. CEO Brad Garlinghouse has previously commented on IPO plans and said that plans are likely to be pursued once the legal dispute with the SEC officially ends.
XRP Price Prediction: 8% rally likely, technical indicators turn bullish
XRP extends recent gains and hovers around $2.33 at the time of writing on Monday.
The XRP/USDT daily price chart shows that the price could rally 8% and test resistance at $2.51, the 50% Fibonacci retracement of the decline from the $3.40 peak to the $1.62 low. If XRP sees a daily candlestick close above $2.51, it could test resistance at $2.72 and $2.72, the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement and the lower boundary of the Fair Value Gap (FVG) on the daily chart, respectively.
The Relative Strength Index (RSI) indicator reads 62 in the daily chart, above its neutral level and sloping upwards, indicating rising bullish momentum. The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) indicator flashes consecutively green histogram bars above the neutral line, signaling an underlying positive momentum in the XRP price trend.
XRP/USDT daily price chart
On the other side, the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement at $2.04 is a key support for XRP. A flash crash in Bitcoin or a market-wide correction could send the altcoin to test this level.
SEC vs Ripple lawsuit FAQs
It depends on the transaction, according to a court ruling released on July 14, 2023: For institutional investors or over-the-counter sales, XRP is a security. For retail investors who bought the token via programmatic sales on exchanges, on-demand liquidity services and other platforms, XRP is not a security.
The United States Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) accused Ripple and its executives of raising more than $1.3 billion through an unregistered asset offering of the XRP token. While the judge ruled that programmatic sales aren’t considered securities, sales of XRP tokens to institutional investors are indeed investment contracts. In this last case, Ripple did breach the US securities law and had to pay a $125 million civil fine.
The ruling offers a partial win for both Ripple and the SEC, depending on what one looks at. Ripple gets a big win over the fact that programmatic sales aren’t considered securities, and this could bode well for the broader crypto sector as most of the assets eyed by the SEC’s crackdown are handled by decentralized entities that sold their tokens mostly to retail investors via exchange platforms, experts say. Still, the ruling doesn’t help much to answer the key question of what makes a digital asset a security, so it isn’t clear yet if this lawsuit will set precedent for other open cases that affect dozens of digital assets. Topics such as which is the right degree of decentralization to avoid the “security” label or where to draw the line between institutional and programmatic sales persist.
The SEC has stepped up its enforcement actions toward the blockchain and digital assets industry, filing charges against platforms such as Coinbase or Binance for allegedly violating the US Securities law. The SEC claims that the majority of crypto assets are securities and thus subject to strict regulation. While defendants can use parts of Ripple’s ruling in their favor, the SEC can also find reasons in it to keep its current strategy of regulation by enforcement.
Author
Ekta Mourya
FXStreet
Ekta Mourya has extensive experience in fundamental and on-chain analysis, particularly focused on impact of macroeconomics and central bank policies on cryptocurrencies.
