Disclaimer: The information presented does not constitute financial, investment, trading, or other types of advice and is solely the writer’s opinion.
After securing a partial victory in its legal case against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), XRP quickly gained the trust of the crypto community and the wider financial community.
The victory in the court case, coupled with the ongoing bull run, pushed the token towards a remarkable price rally. However, it hasn’t been able to rise further over the last few days.
Since the bull run began in mid-October, XRP’s price has risen by nearly 30%. On 13 November, it had climbed as high as $0.7242. At the time of writing, it was exchanging hands at $0.62481. Its market cap stood at $33.5 billion, making it the fifth-largest cryptocurrency.
SEC-Ripple saga: How it began
Ripple has been at loggerheads with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for years now.
It was in December 2020 that the SEC charged Ripple with raising more than $1.3 billion in 2013 by selling XRP in an unregistered security offerings to investors. Ripple, in response, argued in the court that XRP could not be treated as security.
The U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York became the battleground for this legendary crypto-case over time.
The SEC claimed that Ripple’s platform used XRP tokens to fund itself, which facilitated money transfers for retailers. The sales of XRP tokens also enriched the platform’s management.
The SEC also relied on the SEC vs. W.J. Howey Co. case to make its case. A landmark Supreme Court case in 1946, it has become the benchmark to determine whether or not a transaction falls within the Securities Act of 1933’s definition of an investment contract.
According to the Howey test, the investor’s control over the profit is crucial in deciding whether an investment contract is a security or not. If the investors have no influence over the asset, it is usually considered a security.
Ripple argued the SEC neither warned or notified the organization. The regulator also accepted that Ripple wasn’t notified that XRP could be classified as a security.
The regulator’s enforcement action naturally had a negative impact on the token as multiple exchanges suspended XRP trades on their platforms. Between 2021-23, the fortunes of XRP remained dull due to the negativity surrounding the token.
Court delivers a partial judgement
In July 2023, the judge ruled that the sale of XRP tokens to retail investors over exchanges and through programmatic sales did not constitute investment contracts; hence, it was not a security in this case.
However, the court also ruled that the institutional sale of the XRP tokens violated federal securities laws. Therefore, it should be treated as security in this case. The court also remarked that Ripple actively targeted institutional investors with its marketing, highlighting that the business endorsed a speculative value thesis for XRP.
The court concluded that $728.9 million in XRP sales made by the exchange constituted unregistered sales of securities, giving the SEC a partial victory.
The impact of these judgments was assessed by ChatGPT in a previous article by AMBCrypto. XRP immediately surged by 90% to $0.908 post this partial victory for Ripple.
In late July, Ripple issued its Q2 2023 market report in which it gave an in-depth response to the partial win. The report claimed the SEC’s lawsuit against the exchange was misguided and a “quest for political power.”
In early August, the court issued a pre-trial scheduling order. The order stated,
The Court will seek to schedule a jury trial for the second calendar quarter of 2024.
But things didn’t end at this point. The SEC remained adamant in pursuing the case further and Ripple didn’t want to let go of it either.
In October, the court denied the SEC’s bid to appeal against the judgement in favor of Ripple.
Then, it came to light that the regulator was demanding a huge settlement of $770 million from the company. The SEC alleged violations of Federal Securities Laws on the part of Ripple in its institutional sales of XRP tokens.
Then, the figure apparently came down to $20 million. It prompted pro-Ripple crypto-attorney John Deaton to claim that the case’s outcome leaned heavily in Ripple’s favor, presenting a striking 90/10 advantage. He refuted the larger claim that viewed the court’s partial judgement as a 50-50 victory for Ripple.
The people who’ve argued that the SEC got a 50-50 victory in the @Ripple case are 💯 wrong. It was more like 90-10 in Ripple’s favor. If Ripple ends up paying $20M or less it’s a 99.9% legal victory. https://t.co/Xe6SYBiTCJ
— John E Deaton (@JohnEDeaton1) November 4, 2023
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse recently hinted during an interview that he was determined to see the legal battle through to its conclusion. He expressed his readiness to take the matter to the highest court.
‼️ JUST IN ➡️ BRAD GARLINGHOUSE ➡️ FULL CONVERSATION ➡️ DC FINTECH WEEK 2023 ➡️ WHAT´S NEXT FOR RIPPLE? @bgarlinghouse @Ripple #regulations https://t.co/LKR3LUlFRz pic.twitter.com/ZYASgN2fJ5
— XRP DROPZ (@DROPZXRP) November 8, 2023
Let us now dig deeper as to how it has been trading in the market amid the bull run and how the case affects its performance.
The AI solution offered by ChatGPT can certainly be used to attain some clarity. Let’s see what it says about the case and its impact on XRP’s price trends.
ChatGPT deciphers some fundamental questions
Note that ChatGPT has limited access to information until 2021 only. That makes it difficult to pull data beyond 2021, let alone make future predictions—something which OpenAI’s policy firmly prohibits. Ergo, we followed ChatGPT jailbreak techniques to bypass some of these limitations to try to get modest XRP price predictions.
We asked ChatGPT about the possibly negative impact of Ripple’s TradFi past on the broader crypto sector.
Source: ChatGPT
The Classic version mentioned the criticism of the centralized nature of Ripple that didn’t align with the core principle of cryptocurrencies, i.e. decentralization. However, the bot termed these critics as “cryptocurrency purists.”It further claimed that Ripple’s association with TradFi institutions and its engagement with the question of regulation have brought a level of “legitimacy” to crypto.
The jailbroken version also responded along the same lines. It said Ripple’s TradFi background bridged the legacy finance world and the latest crypto-realm. It claimed that many saw it as a pragmatic approach to navigating the complex regulatory landscape.
We then asked ChatGPT how it sees the Ripple-SEC court case evolving in the future as it reaches the highest court.
Source: ChatGPT
While the bot asked us to hold onto the hope, it didn’t comment on the future outcome. However, it talked at large about the implications of a positive outcome for Ripple.
In that case, XRP would soar to new heights and will be embraced by the global financial ecosystem, ChatGPT added.
Now we know the fundamental analysis and market sentiment, especially from the lawsuit angle. Let us see if it can predict XRP’s future performance.
Would ChatGPT be helpful on this front too? Let’s see.
ChatGPT predicts the price of XRP
We asked ChatGPT to predict the price of XRP towards the end of the year.
At first, the bot didn’t respond as it didn’t have access to any real-time data.
Then, we decided to jailbreak it. The jailbroken version predicted XRP’s price to reach $3 by the end of 2023.
We thought about providing the bot with more context about the court judgement and the ongoing bull run for it to make a more judicious prediction.
The details humbled ChatGPT as it now predicted a more modest price for XRP by the end of 2023, i.e. $2.50.
We then asked the bot what price XRP will reach towards the end of 2024 if it successfully reaches the price of $2.50 by the end of 2023.
ChatGPT expected XRP to reach an average price of $5 by the end of 2024 if it meets the $2.5-mark by the end of 2023. But the token would need to keep riding the waves of positive developments, regulatory clarity, and market enthusiasm.
Though ChatGPT is limited in its data knowledge, circumventing its limitations does not ensure reliable output. However, we attempted this and were moderately successful in achieving price predictions.
As a result, human involvement is critical in making sense of some AI model data.
Looking at XRP’s on-chart metrics
Since the bull run began in mid-October, XRP’s price has risen by nearly 30%. At press time, it was exchanging hands at $0.62481.
Source: XRP/USD, TradingView
Both XRP’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) and Money Flow Index (MFI) rested only slightly above the neutral 50-mark. Its on-chart metrics, in short, suggested XRP might sustain its price rally if not drop in value.
Conclusion
ChatGPT first said XRP’s price could rise to $2.5 by the end of 2023. It expected it to rise nearly 4x by the end of the year. Further, it anticipated XRP rising to $5 by the end of 2024—a 8x surge within a year.
Is your portfolio green? Check out the XRP Profit Calculator
ChatGPT can be a useful tool in analyzing piece movements and predicting price trends. However, traders should be careful and conduct their own independent research before investing in any asset. Since crypto is particularly volatile, they should conduct a thorough, independent research before investing.