Crypto Exchanges Start Suspending XRP Trading Following SEC Lawsuit, XRP Price Tanks Below $0.20

It’s almost a death knell for XRP investors as the price of the cryptocurrency tanks more than 60% over the last week. At press time, XRP is trading 20% down below $0.20 as per data on WorldCoinIndex.

While all other cryptocurrencies have been surging fast, XRP has been going down at an unprecedented rate. The recent price crash came after one of the biggest crypto trading platform Coinbase announced suspending the XRP trading starting January 19, 2021.

The decision to suspend the XRP trading comes on the backdrop of the SEC lawsuit filed against Ripple last week accusing the company of selling unregistered XRP securities.

The official announcement from the exchange states: “We have made the decision to suspend the XRP trading pairs on our platform. Trading will move into limit only starting December 28, 2020 at 2:30 PM PST, and will be fully suspended on Tuesday, January 19, 2021 at 10 a.m. PST. The trading suspension will not affect customers’ access to XRP wallets which will remain available for deposit and withdraw functionality after the trading suspension”.

But Coinbase is not alone in the decision of suspending XRP trading. A number of other popular crypto-exchanges have come forward to this decision. Last week, crypto exchange Bitstamp was the first to announce XRP trading suspension.

In the last 24 hours, apart from Coinbase, crypto exchange OKCoin and Crypto.com also announced their decision to suspend XRP trading. As popular exchanges start delisting XRP, there’s a massive fear among its investors thereby triggering huge sell-offs.

However, Ripple has strongly defended its position and said that XRP is in no ways a ‘security’ but only a ‘currency. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has accused former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton who retired soon after filing the Ripple lawsuit complaint last week.

In his recent tweet on Christmas, Garlinghouse wrote: “Thus far the world has heard the SEC's version of reality. The legal process will unfold from here and the world will have a much more robust and complete picture of the facts soon”.

Other potential partners of Ripple have been monitoring the developments. Last week, remittance company MoneyGram distanced itself from Ripple saying that it has never used its XRP crypto for any cross-border payments. Ripple is a major investor in MoneyGram.

Ripple’s strongest ally and Japanese banking giant SBI Holdings has, however, extended to the blockchain startup and said that Ripple won’t face any issue in Japanese jurisdictions.

Note that 90% of XRP transactions happen outside the U.S.