The price of XRP has surged over 40% in the past week partly thanks to upward pressure that appears to be coming from cryptocurrency futures trading platforms, as speculators have been betting on the cryptocurrency’s future.
According to data shared by technical analyst Ali Martinez, the price of the cryptocurrency has been moving up over the last few days as its open interest rose by about $100 million.
Data from bybt shows that the price of XRP rose along with open interest, with most of the trading volume being on Binance, Bybit, and FTX. Ali’s tweet shows that as open interest rose, some whales used the surge to leave the network.
Using data from Santiment, the analyst pointed to a reduction in the number of large XRP holders on the network. The figure dropped after XRP exploded upward from $0.6 to over $0.73 according to TradingView data. Over the past week, the cryptocurrency’s price moved up over 40%.
As CryptoGlobe reported, according to legal expert and XRP supporter Jeremy Hogan, Ripple settling its lawsuit with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could lead to an XRP supply shock, which presumably would lead to a price surge as demand would remain the same, while supply plunged.
The legal expert noted XRP could become the first cryptocurrency to be “100% in the clear from the SEC” if it were to reach a settlement with the regulator. The SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple and two of its executives alleges they “raised over $1.3 billion through an unregistered, ongoing digital asset securities offering.”
It negatively impacted the price of XRP, as after the lawsuit was announced most cryptocurrency exchanges started delisting the token to avoid any repercussions, affecting its liquidity. Some exchanges, however, sided with Ripple on the lawsuit, arguing that the SEC’s move hurt XRP investors.
Crypto exchange Uphold pointed out that the SEC’s goal is to protect consumers, and believes it’s hard to see “how a judgment rendering XRP essentially worthless and inflicting billions of dollars of losses on retail investors” would square with that goal.
Ripple itself has argued the lawsuit “already affected countless innocent XRP retail holders with no connection to Ripple.” It added it “muddied the waters for exchanges, market makers, and traders.” The firm’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse has said the fintech firm is highly likely to go public after it settles its lawsuit with the regulator.
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