XRP records slight gains as Ripple's battle with SEC nears end

Ripple's XRP recorded a 2% gain on Wednesday following rumors of the company nearing an agreement with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) to end their four-year legal battle.

Ripple's battle with the SEC may be ending soon

Ripple could be on the verge of ending its four-year legal battle with the SEC, according to Fox Business's Eleanor Terrett, who cited two unmentioned sources.

The development follows the recent closure of enforcement actions against several crypto companies — including Coinbase, Robinhood and Kraken — by the new SEC administration under acting Chair Mark Uyeda.

Many have anticipated the agency to reach a similar conclusion with Ripple despite the former Gary Gensler-led SEC appeal against Judge Torres's ruling last August. Judge Torres scaled down the SEC's request to slap Ripple with a fine of $1.95 billion to $125 million, including a permanent injunction that prevented the company from selling XRP to institutional investors.

The delay in concluding the case stems from Ripple's legal team negotiating to remove parts of Judge Torres's ruling as the new SEC administration is ending previous legal cases against crypto firms due to ongoing digital asset regulatory reforms within the agency and the US at large. Hence, it's unclear if all of Judge Torres' ruling still stands based on the new SEC leadership's regulatory position, according to Terrett.

Lawyer James Murphy had earlier speculated a similar reason, stating that Ripple may be delaying the SEC's dismissal of its case as the securities law violations and injunction ruling do not favor the company.

"This is particularly true if Ripple is considering a future exempt securities offering or IPO," he wrote in an X post on March 1.

XRP could retest $2.72 resistance if it holds $2.00 support

XRP saw $11.10 million in futures liquidations in the past 24 hours, per Coinglass data. The total amount of liquidated long and short positions was $5.63 million and $5.47 million, respectively.

The remittance-based token bounced near the $2.00 psychological level and is leaning toward testing the upper boundary of a rectangular channel.

XRP/USDT daily chart

If XRP continues to hold the $2.00 support, it could smash the channel's resistance at $2.72 and rally to test its seven-year high at $3.40.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) and Stochastic Oscillator (Stoch) are below their neutral levels but trending upward, indicating that bearish momentum is slowing down.