Ripple has become part of a scandal with a pump-and-dump scheme, Reddit traders, and the WallStreetBets forum. As it turned out, retail investors are able to boost a poorly capitalized asset, but they clearly do not have the resource to maintain its growth.
It won't be surprising if US regulators would like to take a closer look at this story. Market manipulation is illegal in the United States.
Meanwhile, some analysts assume that retail investors may pose a risk to the system, especially after such an alarming week when major hedge funds suffered huge losses from the army of WallStreetBets. Some of them even recalled the notoriously famous American hedge fund LTCM. It collapsed in 1998 and almost ruined the global financial system.
Nevertheless, retail traders could not keep the floated rate of Ripple, which was to be proved. Let's go back to the technical analysis and determine the future prospects for XRP/USD.
Let's take a look at the weekly chart to see a bigger picture. Now the price is approaching the mirror level 0.3512 from top (green horizontal line). The further direction of XRP/USD will depend on whether this level proves to be strong support.
If the price founds support at 0.3512 and rebounds to the upside, the Ripple may resume its growth. A breakout of this horizontal line will pave the way for XRP/USD to downward targets at the levels of 0.2867 and 0.2239.
On the four-hour chart, we see that the strong mirror level of 0.3512 has already been confirmed by an upside rebound. So, there is technical potential for XRP/USD to rise towards the nearest resistance of 0.4348.