Why is Ripple (XRP) price up today?

TL;DR

• XRP hit a three-year high, possibly due to several bullish factors.
• One of them involves a possible resolution of the Ripple v. SEC case as Gary Gensler prepares to retire.

XRP on the run

Ripple’s XRP is the top 20 best-performing cryptocurrency today (November 29). Its price rose to almost $1.63, a level last seen in spring 2021. It is currently trading at around $1.61 (according to data from CoinGecko), up 10% daily and a staggering 200% increase over the past month.

One factor potentially contributing to its rally is recent developments surrounding Ripple’s stablecoin RLUSD. Earlier this week, X user Vet claims Almost all tokens have this been burnedwhich sparked rumors that the product’s launch was imminent. However, Monica Long (President of Ripple) recently said that RLUSD will see the light of day once it receives regulatory approval from the NYDFS.

Another element could be the increasing speculation that the legal dispute between Ripple and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could be coming to an end. A few days ago, the chairman of the regulator, Gary Gensler, announced that he would resign in January next year. He is known for his anti-crypto stance and unsurprisingly, the XRP army cheered the news of his impending departure.

The community now expects a pro-crypto leader and a positive outcome to the legal dispute that has been going on for almost four years.

Several experts believe Ripple could indeed benefit from the change. American lawyer Jeremy Hogan predicted that the agency could drop all crypto lawsuits filed over the years for non-fraud. He thinks The Ripple case was settled for the previously decided amount of $125 million.

“It would be…inconvenient to settle for less than the court has already awarded! Coinbase and others cases in Litigation will simply be dismissed. The will take some time. Not in January, but maybe before summer. That’s my decision and I stand by it,” Hogan said.

Chris Giancarlo (former CFTC Chairman) as well provided a similar scenario. Earlier this week, he suggested that the SEC might dismiss the lawsuit against Ripple under Donald Trump’s administration.

Bonus: The potential ETF

An additional factor which may have had a positive effect The price of XRP is the latest step from Bitwise asset management. The entity submitted a proposal to the SEC for a new ETF that would include ten cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), Ripple (XRP), Cardano (ADA), Avalanche (AVAX), Chainlink (LINK) , Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Polkadot (DOT) and Uniswap (UNI).

It is important to note that each asset in the crypto index ETF is assigned a specific stock. BTC accounts for the lion’s share at 75.1%, while XRP accounts for 1.5%.

The introduction of such products has historically led to a price rally in the underlying cryptocurrencies. It will be interesting to see whether the regulator will approve the development and whether it will have an impact on the market.