Ripple price (XRP/USD) drops below $0.30 on Wednesday morning

The Ripple price (XRP/USD) is fighting to defend the $0.30 mark, after a big Wednesday morning drop put that level under pressure for the first time in nearly a month.

The third-largest digital currency on the market experienced some positive price action during yesterday’s morning session, when its price rose to an intraday high of $0.328. However, the coin wasn’t able to defend its gains during the afternoon portion of the session and finished the day in the negative territory, following several hours of slow, but steady, decline. XRP closed the session at $0.321, down from its opening price of $0.323.

Having spent such a large portion of yesterday’s session on the defensive, Ripple continued to follow the downtrend during the opening hours of today’s trading. Then, at roughly 08:30 BST, the digital coin experienced a sharp plunge that sent its price below the $0.30 mark for the first time in nearly a month. XRP dropped to as low as $0.299, before rallying to reclaim the $0.30 mark. At the time of writing, the Ripple price was trading at above $0.30, but still well below the level of its Tuesday close. Meanwhile, its 24-hour trading volume has surged to nearly $1.5 billion, reflecting the earlier sell-off.

Ripple’s slump appears to be in line with a larger downtrend affecting the broader crypto currency market and especially altcoins, While the original cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC), has seen some losses today, major altcoins, such as Ripple, Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH), have suffered a beating. EOS has been the worst performing digital coin in the top 10, having lost nearly 9.5% in the past 24 hours.

In today’s trading, the Ripple price stood at $0.302, as of 16:41 BST. The digital coin has lost 7.2% of its value in the past 24 hours, according to data from digital currency tracker Coinmarketcap. The coin’s total market capitalisation currently stands at almost $12.7 billion.