Why is XRP up today? Potential Ripple – SEC settlement reflects on charts ahead of ETF approval

Pro-crypto US attorney Jeremy Hogan sees the Ripple vs. SEC court battle coming to end before an XRP ETF is approved, which markets are betting will take place sooner than later. His sentiments come after Nasdaq sought approval from the regulator to list the CoinShares XRP ETF on Monday. Ripple’s native token is up 2.8% in the last 24 hours.

According to Coingecko updates, XRP has gained approximately 7% over the past three days, with bullish traders pushing its price to levels above $2.47. 

Ripple’s recent upward price movement is closely linked to ongoing legal proceedings involving Ripple and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which the markets are predicting could come to an end soon.

Ripple vs SEC: Could we see an end?

Ripple’s legal troubles with the SEC date back to December 2020 when the agency sued the company and its executives, accusing them of conducting an unregistered securities offering by selling XRP. 

However, the legal battle took a significant turn in July 2023, when Judge Analisa Torres ruled that Ripple did not necessarily offer XRP to its investors as securities. Just over a year later, in another court decision, Judge Torres ruled that the company would need to pay a $125 million civil penalty for its institutional sales of Ripple tokens, a far smaller penalty than the $2 billion the SEC originally sought.

Ripple appeared willing to settle the fine, but the SEC appealed the court’s decision, prolonging the case indefinitely. But Jeremy Hogan, a pro-Ripple attorney, believes a resolution might take place before a potential XRP ETF approval in 2025. 

“Not because it has to happen in that order, but because the ETFs will just take longer to dot the i’s and cross the t’s,” he posted on X.

Several major financial firms have filed for ETFs, including Grayscale, WisdomTree, Bitwise, 21Shares, and most recently, CoinShares.

Eric Balchunas, a senior ETF research analyst at Bloomberg, set the odds of a Ripple ETF approval before the end of 2025 at 65%, although the percentage was much higher for Litecoin, Dogecoin and Solana.

Our official alt coin ETF approval odds are out. Litecoin leads w 90% chance, then Doge, followed by Solana and XRP. We are only doing for 33 Act $IBIT-esque filings. But def poss to see futures or Cayman-subsidiary type 40 Act stuff get through as well. https://t.co/JSaNnifjbu

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) February 10, 2025

Polymarket bettors have placed an 81% chance on the approval of an XRP ETF in 2025, but the confidence is significantly lower when the time frame is limited to the end of July. Only 44% predict an approval coming in the first half of this year, likely attributed to the uncertainty about the SEC’s court case with Ripple.

XRP experiences a slight upward price trend

XRP’s technical chart reflects a positive market sentiment, though its path to further gains is not without challenges. The token’s price has found support near the $2.40 level, which aligns with the volume-weighted average price (VWAP). 

On the Donchian Channels, XRP is seen recovering from its intraweek low of $2.11, with immediate resistance now expected around $2.55. Should the price break above this level, the next psychological barrier for traders could be $2.8.

XRP faces immediate resistance at the $2.77 level, which aligns with the 0.618 retracement of its recent decline. A clean break above this level could see the price accelerate toward $3.08. On the other hand, failure to break through could lead to a pullback and a retest of lower levels around $2.47 or $2.23.

At present, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) for XRP stands at 62.54, indicating that the market sentiment is relatively balanced, with neither overbought nor oversold conditions. The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) shows a weak bullish momentum, with a difference of just 0.01, while the 50-day moving average is positioned at $2.44, suggesting it could act as a support or resistance level.