CoinMarketCap has XRP rising higher on Friday reaching above $0.37. The ccn article I have used does not say where its figures are from though it has a chart from Bitinex so perhaps that is the source. There are often differences in price on different exchanges.
Rally may be due to announced strengthening of xRapid
XRapid is a cross-border banking solution. Ripple announced three exchanges as their partners, Bitrex in the USA, Bitso in Mexico, and Coin.Ph in the Philippines. Banks that are linked to Ripple Labs will be able to open an account at the exchanges listed and trade the local fiat money for XRP. The XRP can be used to facilitate cross-border transactions on top of the Ripple ledger. If XRP funds are moved from the US to Mexico for example, the recipient can then convert the XRP to Mexican pesos using the Bitso exchange.
Long-term XRP bearish trend could be reversed
While the announcement may have triggered some buying among speculators, XRP has been in a recovery mode since August 13. However, there continues to be a long-term bearish trend although this could be reversed if an extended inverse head-and-shoulders patters is formed toward $0.46936.
At 23:19 yesterday, XRP was targetting $0.35428 as it potential upside which is the base of the inverse head-and-shoulders pattern. The shoulder level aligns at $0.31282. Technically XRP is oversold and should expect bearish corrections over the near term. The bias though remains towards the bulls for now.
The XRP rally has been larger than that of either bitcoin or ethereum both of which appear to have been stopped by strong resistance. BTC rose about 3 percent on Friday while etherium (ETH) did a bit better at five percent.
Present situation
It is now well into August 18 Saturday. The XRP price opened well over $0.35 but has drifted down so far throughout the day. At 15:19 UTC it was already at $0.319644, down well over 5 percent on the day so far but there are more than 8 hours left in trading. While the price did reach well above $0.35, it did not remain there over today but has fallen far below that level. It remains to be seen if the decline continues but the bulls should be a bit worried. The present price of XRP can be found here.
