Ripple: $690,000 spent on lobbying in 2020

Ripple Labs spent $690,000 on lobbying in the United States in 2020, however they failed to save the company from legal proceedings by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

According to the lobbying revelations, Ripple’s lobbying programme has overtaken other companies in the cryptocurrency industry in 2020.

Meanwhile, cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance US, Gemini and Kraken have reported no such spending. One of the world’s largest exchanges with more than 13.3 million users, Coinbase, spent $230,000 on lobbying in the same period.

In early 2020, Ripple discontinued its internal lobbying team to move contracts to professional law firms. The activities that Ripple sponsors are primarily aimed at legislation before Congress such as the Token Taxonomy Act and the Digital Commodity Exchange Act.

This approach is quite similar to big technologies like Uber and Grab. These ride-hailing platforms work on the concept of moving forward to gain market share, acting through lobbying. If you wait until the legislation is fully in place, it becomes too late to compete or too expensive to regain market share. Especially the grey area with indistinct laws.

Ripple’s lobbying activities have not stopped the SEC
Despite this, Ripple is not avoiding scrutiny from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). On 22 December 2020, the SEC filed a complaint against Ripple Labs, Inc. and two of its executives, Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen, in the US Southern District Court in New York. The SEC accused Ripple Labs, the company behind the XRP cryptocurrency, of violating digital asset regulations.

In its complaint, the Commission pointed to a simple pattern of selling XRP that was never registered with the SEC or under any registration exemption. In the Commission’s view, this led to continued sustained activity of illegal sales of unregistered andon-exempt securities under Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933.

Now, 7 years after XRP and Ripple Labs were created, the SEC claims that the individuals accused in the lawsuit as well as Ripple Labs have received many warnings not to continue down the path they were on, but have been ignored.

The SEC has taken action against many ICO projects in recent years, but Ripple is the biggest case of all. After the SEC filed a lawsuit against Ripple for selling tokens as unregistered securities worth $1.3 billion, many major exchanges began removing XRP, and this trend is likely to continue. However, regardless of how this case is resolved in court, it has already caused very significant damage to the company and the price of the XRP token.

Ripple has always been in a state of controversy within the industry. As one of the oldest projects, it caught the eye of many retail investors very early on. Through the advantages of that retail sale, the project once held third place by market capitalisation on CoinMarketCap. But many cryptocurrency analysts have been doubting its future for a long time.

On the one hand, there is Ripple Labs, which is a growing company with a large number of institutional clients. On the other hand, the XRP token has little to do with what this company is doing. In relation to the Biden administration announced on January 17, 2021, the intention to appoint Gary Gensler as chairman of the SEC may present advantages for Ripple, considering the CEO’s support for Joe Biden’s campaign. In any case, the risk is still very high.

Bitcoin rises to $40,000 – and is immediately rejected again. What follows now?

Yesterday, Bitcoin was able to build incredible momentum and rose to $40,000.

However, there BTC was harshly rejected and as a result fell back below the critical area at $40K. What awaits the Coin now?

Bitcoin fails at critical level

Bitcoin (BTC) peaked at $40,112 on January 14, but was rejected immediately after and has been declining ever since.

While the long-term trend so far is likely trending bearish, the short-term trend remains bullish as long as Immediate Bitcoin trades above $36,717.

Hidden divergence causes bitcoin pump

BTC has been moving higher since it hit a local low of $30,402 on Jan. 11. It formed a long lower wick just above the 0.382 Fib retracement level of the recent uptrend.

BTC rose as high as $40,112 on January 14 before being rejected.

Technical indicators on the daily time frame are bearish. While the RSI has generated a significant hidden bullish divergence, a price rise has already occurred as a result.

The MACD is moving down and the Stochastic Oscillator has formed a bearish cross. Both are strong signals that the trend is bearish.

Future Movement

The six-hour chart shows that BTC has been rejected at a certain level (0.786 Fib retracement level), which previously acted as support. Therefore, the $39,463 area is now confirmed as resistance.

Despite the rejection, technical indicators are still bullish and there is an ascending support line currently at $34,000. This means that it is possible that the short-term trend is still bullish.

The two-hour chart shows that BTC is following another, shorter-term ascending support line. This line is currently just below the $37,143 support area (which represents the 0.382 Fib retracement of the recent uptrend).

As long as BTC trades above this support area/line, the short-term trend is still considered bullish.

BTC wave count

The so-called wave count shows that BTC may have completed a correction. Yesterday, BTC was rejected by the resistance line of a parallel ascending channel, suggesting that it is a corrective move.

While the A-B-C correction appears to be complete, it is still possible that wave 5 will extend.

So, as long as BTC does not fall below the low of sub-wave 4 at $36,717 (represented by the red line), it is possible that the upward movement will continue. It could potentially reach a high of 42,603, which would give waves A:C a ratio of 1:1.61.

While it is possible that the BTC trend is in wave 4, that does not fit the longer-term count. Also, the invalidation level would be the same. Therefore, it does not seem worthwhile to follow this count until further notice.
Conclusion

While Bitcoin (Go to Buy Bitcoin Cheap Guide) seems to be nearing the top of its corrective move, the short-term trend is considered bullish as long as BTC trades above $36,717.