Trading of Ripple, the centralized digital currency developed by Ripple Labs, nearly approached an exchange price of $2 after a fierce rally that overshot the previous psychological level of one dollar. After more than two years of being stuck around $0.50, XRP shot up to $1.96 on April 14, and traders quickly moved to collect profits.

The last time the XRP/USD exchange price danced around the $1 mark was January 2018. Since then, the Ripple Labs team has been able to establish solid partnerships with commercial banks and money transfer companies, but these strong fundamentals were met with a puzzling lack of interest. Executives at Ripple Labs were eventually forced to deal with a lawsuit filed by the United States Securities and Exchange commission, and the XRP price ended up suffering the consequences of this legal action. While the XRP/USD price has somewhat stabilized, there is little hope of future success or innovation in this space, particularly with regard to XRP becoming a leading currency token.

The future of Ripple Labs as an exchange ecosystem is uncertain, and the XRP/USD price is on the verge of being dragged down further unless executives are able to prevail in the SEC lawsuit. We have seen XRP price increase above $0.50 within several weeks of its inception in late 2014, and this was congruent with a push of the company's most notable projects: a platform for financial engineering, a payments network), and a digital currency that could be used to dethrone the old and creaky SWIFT system of international bank wires.

With the XRP rising so quickly in just a couple of weeks, it has been hard to see where the remaining growth will come from. The XRP/USD price has never moved so quickly and aggressively in that short span of time. There is a decent chance that it could end up above $2 if there is another rally based on fundamentals. All in all, XRP traders should be cautious because these recent news developments will surely bring new investors into the fray, which means that trading volume and volatility could jump over the next few days.