Mid-July was a hot time for popular cryptocurrency XRP. Over the course of two weeks, the price of the token rose by more than 53% at the peak of its growth, reaching a high not seen since early April.
Many have attributed XRP's price action to several factors. First, a year ago on July 13, XRP was ruled by a court to be a nonsecurity, and it seems that this partly fueled traders' feelings about the imminent regulatory clarity that would be achieved by the start of the SEC's case against Ripple.
This speculation has been fueled by a closed SEC meeting, recently displayed on the regulator's website. Many have begun to believe that this may be behind the discussion of settlement terms with Ripple.
Recall that the latest issue of contention between the crypto company and the commission is the level of remedies for unregistered sales by legal entities. While the SEC insists on a multi-million dollar fine, Ripple is willing to pay no more than $10 million.
Thus, crypto enthusiasts and members of the XRP community were already awaiting the outcome of this legal battle today when, according to the same SEC website, this very meeting was canceled.
As a result, the price of the popular cryptocurrency suffered a crushing sell-off, dropping more than 8%.
It is funny that the token rose on nothing and fell on "nothing," but that's the crypto market. Following all this roller coaster price action of XRP, CoinGlass reports that $5.63 million worth of positions have been liquidated, of which $3.61 million were longs.