Crypto market soars on XRP ruling, Bitcoin hits highest price in 13 months

Cryptocurrency prices surged higher on Thursday after the judge presiding over the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) lawsuit against Ripple Labs ruled that the XRP token is not a security.

The crypto ecosystem responded to the news with jubilation, with many declaring that the bull market is now officially underway and new all-time highs for many tokens are only a matter of time.

Stocks also climbed higher after the latest producer price data provided additional evidence that inflation is cooling, while a strong start to earnings season showed that companies have been performing stronger than analysts expected. At the close of markets, the S&P, Dow and Nasdaq all finished in the positive, up 0.85%, 0.14%, and 1.58%, respectively.

Data provided by TradingView shows that Bitcoin (BTC) hovered around support at $30,400 in the early hours on Thursday before climbing above $31,700 in the afternoon after the XRP ruling was announced.

BTC/USD Chart by TradingView

In his morning Bitcoin update, Kitco senior technical analyst Jim Wyckoff noted that “August Bitcoin futures prices are slightly up in early U.S. trading Thursday.”

At the time, Wyckoff said “BC traders are waiting for a price ‘breakout’ from the trading range. Bulls are hoping for an upside breakout that would suggest another leg up in prices. Bears want a downside breakout that would suggest a price downtrend developing.”

It looks as though the XRP judgment may have given bulls the momentum they needed as BTC hit its highest price since June 2022 on Thursday afternoon, and looks to continue its climb on the back of a growing number of positive developments.

According to market analyst Rekt Capital, “Bitcoin has broken out from its ascending triangle and is positioned to revisit the highs of the Range over time.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean that it is only up from here, as “one could still argue that BTC could form an upside wick here once again, in which case BTC could dip into the ~$30600 level for a key retest,” Rekt Capital said.

Despite the chances of a pullback, Rekt Capital posted the following tweet saying that the crypto market is currently in the early stages of a bull market.

Altcoins surge higher

The XRP news sparked a wave of momentum for the altcoin market that had all but a handful of tokens well into the green, led by XRP, Stellar (XLM) and MobileCoin (MOB).

Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360

XRP price spiked 98% from $0.48 to a high of $0.933. Shortly after the judgment was announced, Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the U.S., announced that it would relist the token, which further propelled its price rise.

XLM is a token that is closely associated with XRP as both projects were created by Jed McCaleb and have a similar design. The price of XLM skyrocketed 104% from $0.095 to a high of $0.196 following the judgment, and has since pulled back to $0.16.

Other popular tokens that saw double-digit gains on Thursday include Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), and Polygon (MATIC).

The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.26 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 48.9%.