The pressure on Ripple, the main issuer of the XRP altcoin, is still increasing. It became known yesterday that the Bitwise investment fund liquidated its position in XRP amid a lawsuit filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Ripple.
In addition, due to friction with the regulator, at least three cryptocurrency exchanges have stopped trading in altcoin. All this negatively affects the XRP rate, because sellers are pushing the rate down.
Until recently, XRP accounted for 3.8 percent of all assets in the Bitwise portfolio. A little math: the total amount of all assets under the management of the fund is estimated at at least $ 245 million. That is, the company got rid of at least $ 9.4 million in XRP.
Why is Ripple XRP falling
Cryptanalyst Ryan Selkis suggested on Twitter that the Grayscale crypto fund is likely to follow Bitwise’s lead and sell altcoins as well, unless the situation improves.
Here is his quote from Twitter.
Wow, that was fast. Bitwise got rid of all XRP available in the public fund. Grayscale is likely to follow the company’s lead. Most cryptocurrency exchanges are likely to join as well.
On this occasion, Bitwise representatives issued a press release. The content of the latter is cited by Decrypt.
Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund does not invest in assets that are likely to be considered securities under federal or state securities laws. Bitwise’s decision to liquidate its XRP position was based on a review of new public information from the SEC complaint.
As of now, XRP price hasn’t come out of a steep peak. This morning, the altcoin is trading in the 25-cent zone, which means that in just a week its value has dropped by 54 percent. For clarity, we present a graph of the asset rate for the last month.
And here are the results of the behavior of the cryptocurrency for different periods of time. As you can see, during the year the XRP rate grew by only 35 percent, while this figure for Bitcoin is 215 percent.
At the same time, users of the CrossTower, Beaxy and OSL exchanges can no longer sell their coins on these trading floors – on the eve of the latter’s leadership, they announced the suspension of XRP trading. The OSL Exchange has published the following message to its clients.
Please note: Due to enforcement action by the US Securities and Exchange Commission against Ripple Labs and its two executives, we have suspended all #XRP transactions and trading services on the OSL platform, effective immediately and until further notice.
According to cryptanalyst Bruce Fenton, this is just the beginning of Doomsday for the asset. He stated that he studied the 71-page SEC requirements document for Ripple. The regulator’s claims are so serious that other cryptocurrency exchanges should follow the example of the aforementioned platforms and sever their ties with XRP. They are allegedly «crazy» if they are not going to delist the altcoin in the coming weeks.
If the US Securities and Exchange Commission recognizes XRP as a security, listing a token without an appropriate license would be crazy.
Nevertheless, in this case, the responsibility will also fall on the management of the trading platforms. This means that the current suspension of trading on various sites is their defensive reaction, the creators of which do not want unnecessary problems with the authorities.
Trading in securities, which, according to the SEC, is XRP, is fraught with serious sanctions from the regulator. In the light of all the above events, it can be assumed that the rate has not yet completed its fall. In addition, in the future, the value of the asset will depend on the actions of the representatives of the Commission and the outcome of the case. As we have already found out in practice, a negative decision on Ripple can seriously collapse the value of the asset.
We believe the SEC case against Ripple could be one of the high-profile events of 2020. Yet XRP is the largest cryptocurrency by market cap and a well-known niche. And as representatives of the US Securities and Exchange Commission have shown, even one lawsuit against the company is enough to seriously hit the token rate. At the same time, an active consideration of the case has not yet begun, that is, further on, the situation may become even harsher.
