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- The XRP token fell 31% after the online platform Coinbase said it would suspend trading in mid-January.
- Last week, the U.S. financial markets regulator 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, following a complaint by the U.S. financial market regulator against developer Ripple Labs.
The XRP fell 28% on the day around $ 0.2018, having dropped to a session low of $ 0.2011 earlier in the day. The value of XRP has lost about 75% since it hit the 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 December 23 that Ripple was effectively making an unregistered offer of $ 1.3 billion with XRP sales, which the regulator considers 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.
“Trading 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 after suspension of trading.
Ripple’s CEO and co-founder Bradley Garlinghouse, who is quoted in the SEC filing, said last week on the company’s blog that the regulator had not given the company “clarity” about whether its XRP token should be classified as currency or title.
Ripple was not immediately available for comment when contacted by Business Insider.