FX.co ★ Ripple's lead engineer quits company

The ongoing situation at Ripple continues to negatively affect both the XRP altcoin and the company itself. Ripple's chief engineer Nik Bougalis announced over the weekend that he is leaving the company.

"My decade-long journey at Ripple has been a fantastic (if exhausting and all-consuming) one. I got to work on a project that I love, towards a goal I believe in. But that journey will be coming to an end in a few weeks," Bougalis posted on Twitter.

At Ripple, Bougalis oversaw a series of developments to the ledger's code base including the introduction of NFTs, which is scheduled to go live in November. Bougalis's departure from the company comes as Ripple begins testing of its XRP ledger sidechain that's compatible with Ethereum-based smart contracts. This would allow developers familiar with the much larger Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) software to deploy their code onto Ripple.

In addition, the company continues its legal battle against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which claims that XRP is a security. Since then, XRP has suffered major losses, and many market players have lost their trust in the altcoin. Even if the court rules in Ripple's favor, it will be very difficult for the project to regain lost popularity. It is unlikely there could be any events in the long run that could possibly win back investors. Every day, more and more projects appear that attract the attention of market players and which have greater potential than Ripple, which could possibly even fail to recover.

This clearly impacts XRP's technical situation. In the long term, the asset is frequently bought near 0.3240 – if the altcoin breaks below it, it will be all over for XRP. To recover, it must settle above 0.7150. From there, it could rise to 1.0000 and later test 1.3030. However, XRP is unlikely to hit its past highs near 3.0000.

Bitcoin has recouped losses it sustained during an earlier slump. The market is now balanced once again, suggesting that risk appetite of investors is low. The key level for BTC at this point is the resistance at $19,500. The cryptocurrency needs to regain this level to begin a new upward correction. If BTC breaks above this level, it would then need to break through the resistance at $20,540 and $21,410. If BTC ends up under increased pressure, which is quite possible, bulls would need to defend the support levels of $19,100 and $18,625. A breakout below these levels would quickly push the instrument back towards the lower boundary of the sideways channel at $18,100, opening the way towards $17,580.

Ethereum has rebounded from the strong support level of $1,275 upwards and is currently moving sideways. A breakout through $1,275 could change the situation in the market significantly. However, ETH would need to settle above $1,343 to stabilize the situation and return balance. From there, Ethereum could rise towards $1,402 and $1,457, with more distant targets being $1,504 and $1,550. Continuing pressure on the instrument and a breakout below $1,275 could send the instrument down towards the support at $1,210. If ETH breaks through this level, it would slide down to $1,150, where major market players would come into play once again.