Cryptocurrency analyst Ali Martinez has shared an XRP chart showing that the fourth-largest cryptocurrency could face a massive price decline.

XRP may fall to $1.30

On the chart shared by Martinez, XRP is breaking out of the head-and-shoulders pattern, signaling that a potential decline to $1.30 may follow. This pattern consists of three peaks, with the middle one being the biggest of all. It signals a reversal from a bullish trend to a bearish one, while an inverted head-and-shoulders shows a bullish signal.

While, currently, XRP is changing hands at $2.03, the plunge that may await XRP after it breaks out of the aforementioned pattern would be more than 50% from the current price.

Coinbase to launch XRP futures trading

Coinbase Derivatives spread the word today on social media about filing with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for approval to launch XRP futures contracts. The approximate date for that product’s release, according to experts, is April 21 this year, with just 20 days to get the approval from the CFTC.

Currently, XRP is the fourth largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization value, with only Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether’s USDT stablecoin sitting ahead of it. This makes XRP one of the highest liquidity assets on the crypto market.

The filing shows that Coinbase plans to launch the futures under the XRL ticker. This will be a monthly, cash-settled, margined product. Each XRL futures contract will track the XRP price, and it will be settled in U.S. dollars, representing 10,000 XRP, or roughly $20,000, since XRP is trading at $2 per coin.

Ripple unlocks one billion XRP, bending its own rules

As U.Today covered earlier, this week on April 3, Ripple unleashed a whopping 1,000,000,000 XRP from escrow. The release was made in three transactions, carrying 200,000,000; 300,000,000 and 500,000,000 XRP. In fiat, this amount of crypto was valued at more than $2 billion at the time of the transaction's performance.

However, this time, the blockchain behemoth released the coins from escrow, breaking the “rule” of the first day of the month. For the first time, it happened in March, and now again. Before that, one billion XRP were withdrawn on February 1.

This time, the traditional escrow deposit of 700,000,000 XRP took place before the actual one billion token release.