It seems now that XRP fell short on capitalizing on hopes that Ripple will finally earn a victory on its long-running legal dispute with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as it swayed between profits and losses on September 19.

It can be recalled that the SEC and Ripple Labs, the company behind XRP, agreed to expedite the lawsuit that aimed to determine whether or not the cryptocurrency could be considered a security.

Both parties now want a federal judge to make a ruling on whether or not Ripple Labs violated federal securities laws or otherwise dismiss the lawsuit, ending the legal battle.

With this, New York Southern District Judge Analisa Torres has been asked to make a summary judgment based on the arguments and accompanying documents submitted by SEC and Ripple Labs which were posted on a federal court database on Friday.

Entrepreneur and crypto enthusiast Jeff Sekinger shared some insights about the matter on Twitter, saying that the case was going in favor of Ripple Labs.

The Pressure Of An Imminent Fed Hike

Basing on its September 19 daily candlestick, experts inferred that XRP’s performance showed a possible growing bias conflict among traders, with the cryptocurrency having sharp bullish and bearish runs. It ended trading at $0.35 that day.

While the SEC lawsuit remains a big factor for this, it is believed that there is another possible reason for the way XRP performed. It could be the upcoming move of the Federal Reserve to have 75 or 100 basis points increase in its benchmark interest rates which is expected to take effect on September 20.

These rate hikes have been proven over the years to put tremendous pressure on the crypto market affecting even pack leaders Bitcoin and Ethereum.

XRP Not Yet Out Of The Woods

As of this writing, XRP seems to be doing well as data from CoinGecko show that it is trading at $0.37, and is looking at a 10% increase in its price over the last 24 hours.

But it turns out that this gain is nothing to be excited about, as independent market analyst Cheds shared its observation, stating that XRP price has been fluctuating, confined inside a “rectangular range” since June.

This “range” as described by Cheds has the resistance of $0.38-$0.40 and support that is set at $0.28-$0.30. XRP, after experiencing a price drop on September 19, is headed towards the support area and could be going under $0.25 in the final quarter of 2022, losing 30% of its value.