Bitstamp has announced its suspension of XRP trading for U.S. citizens, joining the rapidly growing list of other crypto exchanges that have moved to remove the token from their platforms.
Starting from Jan. 8, 2021, Bitstamp’s U.S. customers will no longer be able to deposit or trade the fourth-largest cryptocurrency. From Bitstamp’s statement on XRP:
“In light of the recent SEC filing against Ripple Labs Inc., which alleges that XRP is a security, we are going to halt all trading and deposits of XRP for our US customers on 8 January 2021 at 9 PM UTC. We will closely follow the unfolding situation and continue to adapt accordingly.”
As reported by us two days ago, Ripple was slapped with a bombshell lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission SEC on Dec. 22, causing the XRP price to plummet.
Earlier today we reported that XRP was bouncing back from its 3-day price crash, and was up over 40% in the past 24 hours. However, Since the news of the Bitstamp news was released, XRP’s price rise has fizzled, with the current price at the time of publication only up 10.4%.
Notably, Bitstamp is the first major exchange to drop XRP due to its predicament with the regulatory watchdog. The Luxembourg-based company was founded back in 2011. The Bitwise Crypto Index Fund has also axed its holdings of XRP.
