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- Cryptocurrency XRP fell 31% on Tuesday after the Coinbase trading platform said it would suspend trading in mid-January.
- Last week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint against blockchain company Ripple about how it sells XRP.
- XRP lost about three quarters of its value in six weeks.
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Cryptocurrency XRP fell 31% on Tuesday, after the Coinbase trading platform said it would completely suspend its market’s digital token in mid-January. This followed a complaint by the US financial markets regulator against XRP developer Ripple Labs.
The XRP fell 28% on the day to around $ 0.2018, having dropped to a session low of $ 0.2011 earlier in the day. The XRP has lost about 75% in value since it hit a two-year high in early November, when investors took advantage of the weaker US dollar to accumulate in cryptocurrencies.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Wednesday that Ripple was effectively executing an unregistered offer of $ 1.3 billion with XRP sales, which the regulator considered a bond and not a cryptocurrency.
“In light of the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple Labs, Inc, we made the decision to suspend XRP trading pairs on our platform,” Coinbase said in a statement late on Monday.
“Negotiations will enter the limit only from December 28, 2020 at 2:30 pm PST, and will be fully suspended on Tuesday, January 19, 2021 at 10:00 am, Pacific Standard Time,” the company said.
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Coinbase added that suspending trading would not affect customers’ access to XRP portfolios and that they would remain available for deposits and withdrawals.
Ripple’s CEO and co-founder Bradley Garlinghouse, quoted in the SEC filing, said last week on the company’s blog that the regulator did not give the company clarity on whether the XRP token should be classified as a currency or security.
Ripple was not immediately available for comment when contacted by Business Insider.