XRP has been defying the market-wide decline as it continued its impressive recovery for the month.

The asset – that is at the center of the Ripple lawsuit brought by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) – has surged by nearly 13% over the past day alone.

XRP Surges to 10-Month High

According to data on CoinMarketCap, XRP was currently trading at $0.58, a level not seen since May 2022. The decoupling from the broader market has fetched nearly 60% gains for the crypto-asset in the last ten days, which resulted in a “very high level of trader profit taking.”

XRP’s social dominance also skyrocketed, depicting increased volume and mainstream interest simultaneously. Meanwhile, price analysis further suggested that the crypto-asset could be primed for more gains with a target beyond the $0.60 level.

The initial leg-up can be attributed to the bullish sentiment among investors about the blockchain firm Ripple winning its case against the SEC. A further push was provided by Ark Invests’ Chief Executive Officer Cathie Wood, who chimed in along a similar line in a recent interview,

“It seems they (the SEC) might be on the way to losing that (the Ripple case) as well.”

Yet another factor that appears to have contributed to the surge could be the fundamental upgrades with respect to the XRP Ledger (XRPL) in the past few months. XRPL accounts were also seen steadily rising.

Additionally, the US Commodity Futures and Trading Commission (CFTC), in its lawsuit against Binance, referred to the two largest cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ether, as commodities, thereby potentially bringing XRP within the umbrella as well. This may contradict the SEC’s claim.

David Schwartz Weighs In

As the end of the battle between Ripple and SEC draws closer, the companies associated with the crypto industry are still struggling to find some clarity around the laws they’re supposed to be in alignment with. The community has ridiculed the SEC for its aggressive clampdown on the space.

As for Ripple, its CTO David Schwartz took to Twitter to clarify that XRP ceased to be a security when the company gave up control over XRP Ledger, allowing others to maintain it. However, questions were also raised on the blockchain company’s control of the default Unique Node List (dUNL) and its “responsibility” for code updates to the Ripple codebase that was indicative of XRPL’s reliance on Ripple.

The exec further added that Ripple’s actions were “for the sake of convenience” and not out of necessity while highlighting that there were “no significant obstacles” preventing others from maintaining the XRPL.