Ripple Price Analysis: XRP/USD extends the decline, $0.1600 within reach

• XRP/USD dived below $0.1700 amid major sell-off.
• Ripple needs to stay above $0.1600 to retain bullish bias.

Ripple’s XRP touched $0.1875 on Friday, March 27 and resumed the sell-off amid the worsened sentiments on cryptocurrency markets.  At the time of writing, XRP/USD is changing hands at $0.1683, down over 2.5% both on a day-to-day basis and since the beginning of the day. Ripple’s market value is registered at $7.3 billion, while its average daily trading volume jumped to $3 billion.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse is accused of hypocrisy

According to an amended class-action lawsuit, the head of the San-Fransico-based startup dumped 67,000,000 XRP while heavily promoting the coin. The plaintiffs pointed out that Garlinghouse had been selling XRP tokens in 2017 within days after he got them.

Garlinghouse’s representation that he remained ‘very, very, very long XRP’ and was ‘on the HODL side’—holding XRP for long term gains—was false when made as throughout 2017 Garlinghouse sold millions of XRP on various cryptocurrency exchanges.

A review of the XRP ledger indicates that Garlinghouse sold at least 67 million XRP in 2017 and that he sold any XRP he received from Ripple within days of such receipt. Garlinghouse was not ‘long XRP’ or holding for long term gains. Rather, he was dumping XRP on retail investors in exchange for dollars and other cryptocurrencies.

The initial lawsuit was based on the allegation that Ripple has been selling XRP as unregistered security since 2013. Moreover, they insisted that all 100 billion XRP tokens were created solely with speculative aims.

XRP/USD: Technical picture

A sustainable move below $0.1700 worsened the short-term technical picture and brought more sellers to the market. The initial support is created by SMA100 1-hour on approach to $0.1660. Once it is out of the way, the downside is likely to gain traction with the next focus on psychological $0.1600. This area should slow down the downside momentum and allow for an upside correction.

On the upside, the critical short-term barrier is created by the above-said $0.1700, reinforced by SMA50 1-hour. Also, this area served as a strong support on Friday, during the first wave of the sell-off on the market, which means it is going to be a hard nut to crack for the bulls. Once it is out of the way, the recovery may be extended towards $0.1800 and $0.1875.

XRP/USD 1-hour chart