Ripple (XRP) is making gains and has recovered past the key $1 level on Thursday, but it still faces considerable downside risks that could reverse its current uptrend. At the time of writing, XRP/USD is trading at around $1.01.

The legal tussle with the SEC remains one of the biggest factors driving price action in XRP lately, with the Commission recently having filed a fresh request for discovery related to transactions made in the digital asset. The SEC has approached the judge with a request to allow the deposition of former employees from Ripple as well as a senior executive at a crypto trading firm.

Amid the ongoing lawsuit throwing up considerable uncertainty on the future of the XRP asset, leading crypto exchange Coinbase stopped offering it as an instrument to trade on its platform. If other exchanges follow suit or institutional investors pull out of Ripple’s offerings, it could increase bearish pressure on XRP/USD in the coming sessions, driving a decline in its adoption and usage.

However, despite the legal challenges, Ripple is making progress and increasing its adoption worldwide. During the previous session, Oman’s second biggest bank – BankDhofar, announced its mobile payments service to India leveraging RippleNet. The partnership will allow for faster and cheaper cross-border transactions and comes a few days after a similar arrangement between the National Bank of Egypt and the Lulu International Exchange.

Key Levels to Watch

Despite the downside risks from the ongoing lawsuit, the H4 price chart of XRP/USD is offering some hope with leading indicators MACD and momentum as well as most of the moving averages signaling a bullish bias. The price is very close to the pivot which sits currently at $1.04, and a break above this can strengthen the uptrend comfortably until $1.45 where buyers could encounter some resistance.

A break past this level could see XRP making a play for rising above $1.70. On the other hand, if the market sentiment turns against Ripple, we could see the price slide well below the $1 level, all the way down to the current support level at $0.64.