XRP Plummets Another 19% As Coinbase Delivers Latest Jolt

XRP (XRP) traded 19.14% lower over a 24-hour trailing period at $0.227 at press time, as per CoinMarketCap data.

What Happened: Coinbase, a major cryptocurrency exchange desk based in Silicon Valley, delivered another jolt to Ripple on Monday, saying it had decided to suspend the XRP trading pairs on its platform in light of the SEC lawsuit, starting Jan. 19.

The XRP trading on the Coinbase platform moved into the “limit only” mode on Monday.

Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal said in a statement the exchange desk would continue to monitor legal developments related to XRP.

See also: How to Buy Coinbase IPO (COIN) Stock

Why It Matters: XRP has been seeing overall weakness since last week as Ripple Labs Inc. disclosed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission intended to sue the company over allegedly conducting an unregistered $1.3-billion securities offering.

There has long been a controversy over whether certain cryptocurrencies are securities that should be registered with the SEC. 

Ripple has maintained that XRP isn’t a security and the company’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse has vowed to fight the SEC lawsuit.

The payments network company claimed that other major cryptocurrencies — Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) — were indirectly under Chinese control, in a Wells Notice to the SEC.

XRP was a cryptocurrency with one of the highest returns in the latest rally that took off in July until the SEC lawsuit disclosure. It now sits behind Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether (USDT), in terms of market valuation, at $10.3 billion, as per CoinMarketCap data.

See Also: Ripple, XRP And The SEC: What You Need To Know