Market Summary 22/12: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple…

$0.5300 support level against the US dollar. The ripple continued to decline even moving below $0.5000 and there is potential for more losses below $0.4800.

Any more losses could lead the price towards $0.4500. The next major support is near the $0.4300 level.

But if it keeps falling, it could continue to move down towards up to $0.4200. Ripples are now gaining bearish momentum but hopefully might correct soon.

The United States Security and Exchange Commission is set to sue Ripple (XRP). This is because they are allegedly selling unlicensed securities in the form of XRP tokens.

Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple took to Twitter to announce:

" Today, the SEC voted to attack crypto. Chairman Jay Clayton - in his final act - is picking winners and trying to limit US innovation in the crypto industry to BTC and ETH".

Bringing a more centralized cryptocurrency has been criticized by members of the crypto community.

Ripple is one of the fintech industry's richest companies, with a reserve — mainly held in XRP — that could theoretically be worth almost $25 billion.

This is despite acrimonious splits between the founders and lawsuits the latest of who's news has caused a 13.5% drop in the price of the cryptocurrency token.

The Founders, Garlinghouse, and co-founder Chris Larsen are expected to be named as defendants in the lawsuit.

It's still not clear if they would stay in the U.S considering the lawsuit.

Bitcoin News

The bears seem to have taken control of the bitcoin as the price dropped from its Incredible bullish run over the past week.

The price first dropped to $22,000 but quickly rallied again after it was reported that MicroStrategy had purchased $650 million more of the cryptocurrency.

The price then rose again to $23,000 but there was a slight dip again and it is now around $22,700.

As usual, when bitcoin drops, other altcoins get trampled too, as altcoins like ethereum, Binance coin, litecoin, chain link, stellar, etc all lost a lot on the market.

The three heaviest losses however are, Litecoin at 12%, Bitcoin cash at 16%, and Ripple at 17%. Ripple's heavy loss is majorly due to its lawsuit with the SEC.

Micheal Saylor, CEO of Microstrategy has taken advantage of bitcoin's dip in price.

He announced via Twitter that "MicroStrategy has purchased an additional 29,646 bitcoins for $650 million at an average price of $21,925 per #bitcoin and now #hodl an aggregate of 70,470 bitcoins purchased for $1.125 billion at an average price of $15,964 per bitcoin".

The firm is now the fifth-largest owner of Bitcoin.

In conclusion, although ripple seems to be headed for a bear run, other cryptocurrencies are in a short sip that could turn around at any moment.

What is your BTC price prediction for the rest of the year? Do you think it will remain bullish?