The past 48 hours saw quite a few interesting developments, and in the following section, we will summarize the most important Ripple (XRP) news from that period.

Ripple Mints $25 Million Worth of RLUSD

As CryptoPotato reported, Ripple minted a whopping 15% of RLUSDs total supply (roughly $25 million coins) in one go earlier this week. This expanded the circulating supply to around $170 million, the vast majority of which is still running on Ethereum and not on Ripples native protocol the XRP Ledger (XRPL).

The move had no effect on XRPs price, which remained mostly flat during the previous days. A small increase of around 1.6% was noted, which is more or less in line with that of the rest of the market.

1.7 Million XRP Payments Made in a Day

March 17th was also a good day for the XRP ledger, which processed a considerable number of payments—1.7 million, to be precise. This number has dropped to around 900K at the time of this writing, but it is still a good quantity.

The number of payments signals and shows usability for the XRPL, which is critical for its future development. It shows that the ledger is not a ghost chain and is being used actively and regularly.

Ripple v. SEC Lawsuit Speculations

Undoubtedly, the outcome of the lawsuit between Ripple and the US Securities and Exchange Commission will impact the XRP price and the broader market in general.

To this point, there are growing speculations that Paul Atkins will become the next chairman of the agency, and XRP supporters believe that this could be the final push for the lawsuit to be resolved in a positive manner.

Attorney Fred Rispoli, who frequently comments on the legal clash between the two entities, believes that the lawsuit will be over before April 16th. This is the date associated with the firms scheduled filing of its appellate brief.

Ripple (XRP) Price Prediction: Important Level

Circling back to XRPs price, one popular crypto analyst has put forth his prognosis for the future trajectory of the asset.

Ali Martinez believes that, at present, XRP is testing the waters. However, he warns that theres a critical level that must hold to prevent a drop that could take the price down to $1.6.

XRP is testing the waters! Below $2, a gap with no significant support could pull it to $1.6.

$XRP testing the waters! Below $2, a gap with no significant support could pull it to $1.60. pic.twitter.com/m85sXJGVCr