Ripple Price Outlook Positive on Korean Volume, Analyst Prediction

Ripple's XRP cryptocurrency has completed the round trip at press time.

The ripple-U.S. dollar (XRP/USD) exchange rate jumped to a high of $0.23 at 01:10 UTC today, only to fall back to the session's opening price of $0.21. As per CoinMarketCap, the cryptocurrency is trading at $0.20 and has gained 10.34 percent in the last 24 hours.

But while the gains are in line with action seen in most of the market, social media suggests XRP may be gaining on bullish statements. Making the rounds is one report by Palm Beach Research Group, which suggests the analyst expects the cryptocurrency to outperform in 2018.

A closer look at the charts, however, indicates the rally today may have a more certain cause: Korean desks offering XRP/KRW pairs. Trading volumes on Bithumb, one of the largest exchanges in South Korea, have gone up by 45 percent in the last 24 hours.

Volumes on exchanges offering XRP/BTC pairs have increased as well.

That said, the volume pop was short lived as market attention shifted back to bitcoin. Still, the price action analysis in XRP favors the bulls.

Ripple chart

The above chart shows:

• The sell-off from the post-Swell event high of $0.30 has run out of steam around 0.18, courtesy of strong rebound from sub-$0.18 levels seen yesterday.
• The relative strength index (RSI) seems to have found a bottom around 27.00 levels.
• XRP has formed a rounded-bottom pattern over the last four months.

View

• A convincing move above the 50-day moving average (MA) level of $0.2107 would open doors for $0.2652 (Aug. 31 high) and $0.30 (Oct. 16 high).
• On the downside, only a break below the previous day's low of $0.1742 would revive the post-Swell sell-off and could yield a drop to $0.15 levels.

Binoculars image via Shutterstock