It appears the impasse between Ripple Labs and the SEC is about to take a new twist. The US SEC Friday moved to lodge an amended complaint against Ripple and its associates, accusing the project of price manipulation. The amended lawsuit claims that top executives of Ripple colluded to interfere with the market value of the XRP token.
The SEC provided details of email exchanges between the CFO of Ripple and co-founders Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen where it was alleged that a discussion to adjust the company’s sell targets was held. Among others, Garlinghouse was accused by the SEC of expressing concerns about the XRP token’s non-listing by exchanges.
Garlinghouse and Larsen are said to have raked in hundreds of millions of dollars from XRP token sales at various times between 2015 and 2020.
Ripple price appears to have ignored the latest events and has gained 2.39% this Friday. However, it is still on course to end the week lower whereas most of its peers are all trending higher.
The latest events could yet hurt Ripple price. Technically speaking, this may manifest as a rejection at the 0.55618 resistance line. A pullback from this level retests the support at 0.51869, with 0.49884 lining up as an additional downside target. A downside break of the support trendline brings 0.45121 into the picture.
On the flip side, a break above 0.55618 allows 0.59067 to come into the picture as a new upside target, followed by 0.61766 and 0.67933 along the way. The latter requires the price to break above the recent tops of 13/14 February 2021 at 0.63773 to be actualized.
