The Ripple price is under pressure as investors refocus on the upcoming Federal Reserve interest rate decision and the ongoing SEC lawsuit. The XRP token is trading at $0.8267, where it has been in the past few days. This price is about 57% below the highest level this year while its total market capitalization has moved to more than $38 billion.
Hawkish Federal Reserve and XRP price
Cryptocurrency prices have declined sharply in the past few weeks. The price of Bitcoin has moved to below $50,000 while Ethereum is hovering at around $4,000. In total, cryptocurrencies have lost more than $800 billion worth of value in the past few weeks.
The overall sell-off of these coins is likely because of the Federal Reserve. In November, the bank decided to start tapering its $120 billion per month quantitative easing (QE) program. It announced that it will slash the amount of purchases by about $15 billion. The goal was to end the total purchases by mid next year.
However, recent numbers have signalled that the Fed will increase the size of its tapering in the upcoming meeting. For example, on Friday, data from the US showed that the US inflation surged to the highest level in more than 5 decades.
These numbers came a week after the US published strong employment numbers. The data revealed that the US unemployment rate declined to about 4.2%, the lowest level since the pandemic started.
Therefore, since the Fed will meet this week, analysts expect that the bank will increase the size of its tapering process. The goal will be to stabilize prices by pointing that it will end QE in the first quarter of 2022 and increase rates later in the year.
Higher rates are usually negative for Ripple price because it is a risky asset. At the same time, the XRP price has retreated as investors wait for the first anniversary of the SEC and Ripple case.
Ripple price prediction
The daily chart shows that the XRP price formed a double-top pattern at around $1.3400 recently. The chin of this pattern was at $0.8617. In price action analysis, a double-top is usually a bearish sign. The price has also moved slightly below the 25-day and 50-day moving averages while the MACD has moved below the neutral level.
Therefore, the Ripple price will likely break out lower this week as bears target the key support level at $0.60.
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