After Coinbase, Bittrex has also decided to suspend XRP trading

More and more exchanges are rushing to disassociate themselves from XRP, in order to avoid the negative consequences of the SEC’s legal action against Ripple

On 29 December, exchange Bittrex announced that it will remove XRP from its platform as of 15 January 2021. The affected trading pairs are BTC/XRP, ETH/XRP, USDT/XRP and USD/XRP: only a few days ago, Coinbase had also made a similar decision public.

Since the US Securities and Exchange Commission Bitcoin Machine filed a lawsuit last week against Ripple, the company that issues XRP, the token has plummeted vertically and the major players in the crypto world are quickly distancing themselves from the project.

While denying that XRP is actually a stock

According to the SEC, XRP would be considered a stock, which is why its sale without prior registration, conducted by Ripple, CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen, would violate federal law.

Ripple has responded to the allegations, claiming that this SEC ‚attack‘ on Ripple is actually an attempt to bring down the entire US crypto industry. While denying that XRP is actually a stock, as the SEC claims, the company points out that most of its customers reside outside the US, and that it will continue to operate and support its products in the rest of the world.

This does not seem to have reassured investors, however, as the price of XRP has fallen by around 40% in the last seven days: it currently hovers around $0.21.

XRP was in a strong growth phase before the SEC lawsuit was made public: at the end of November, the asset was trading at $0.67. Following this decline, analysts are wondering whether this legal action will be the end of XRP.