Ripple price (XRP/USD) is under intense pressure today ahead of a legal battle pitting the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple. The currency is down by 9.3% and is trading at the lowest level since December 9.
The backstory: Ripple is a company that helps other institutions move money internally and around the world. It is headquartered in San Francisco but the management has fretted about a potential move to London. Ripple is also the provider of XRP, a digital currency valued at more than $21 billion.
The current suit by the SEC claims that the company violated security laws when it started offering XRP. The SEC says that the currency is a security offering, which puts it under its regulatory powers. Ripple says that the lawsuit is baseless, according to the SEC. It says it has dissociated itself with XRP and turned it to the open-source network.
Ripple owns about 6.4 billion XRP and additional 48 billion in an escrow. Going by the current price of $0.45, these holdings are worth more than $24 billion.
What next for Ripple price: Turning to the four-hour chart, we see that the Ripple price has been under pressure recently. The 25-day and 50-day EMA have made a bearish crossover and the price has moved below the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level. Therefore, for today, I suspect that the price will form a double bottom at 0.4387, which is the December 16 low.
