The market has not been exactly good for Ripple’s XRP this year especially since the beginning of April. To worsen the condition, the entire market recently experienced a dip that brought Bitcoin down from $5,500 to under $5,000 shortly on some exchanges. Although this is a critical moment even for Bitcoin, a renowned trader Peter Brandt says it is a do or die moment for XRP.
The dip which was caused mainly by the allegations concerning Bitfinex and Tether scamming customers of $850 million which has led to a lawsuit by the Attorney General of New York. An executive at Bitfinex said the issue could potentially plunge the entire market and specifically Bitcoin to $1,000. This would have been more devastating for XRP than it is now.
It is however not exactly surprising as Brandt who has been following the XRP market earlier predicted this dip at this time. He accused Ripple of manipulating the market with low XRP prices which he also stated would backfire. In an earlier tweet in March, Brandt gave a summary of the issues with XRP:
Dynamics at work in a massive descending triangle that moves to apex.
1. Mkt is manipulated
2. Manipulators support at fixed level
3. But are forced to lower their selling price as time goes on
4. If (when) support gives way, desperation will ensue$XRPUSD pic.twitter.com/RmJaYiC8KY— Peter Brandt (@PeterLBrandt) March 21, 2019
Ripple has always been blamed for manipulating the XRP market (Although this has been denied by Ripple management), first because it holds over 60% of the circulating supply. , it has been observed many times that this might have an atom of truth in it.
Also, its claims of having over 200 institutional clients has not translated into the price of the asset. This also has raised a lot of questions and some people allege that the customers are actually paid partners that help to promote Ripple and XRP.
On top of that, the banking institutions that have been patronizing Ripple’s xRapid have now withdrawn because of the controversy on whether XRP is a security or not. All this is putting so much pressure on the asset and according to Brandt, this is the chance for XRP to decide whether to go up or collapse into nothing. Which is it going to be?
XRP is currently trading at $0.29 and based on the current market conditions, this is not changing anytime soon as Bitcoin is also pretty slow at making progress up the price ladder which other top assets depend on to climb.
