[DigitalToday reporter Jinju Hong (홍진주)] XRP formed a death cross on an hourly chart, confirming a short-term bearish signal.

On June 21 local time, blockchain outlet U.Today reported that selling pressure increased this week, pushing the 50-day moving average below the 200-day moving average.

The signal came after XRP fell for 4 straight trading sessions from Tuesday to Friday. The price slipped at one point to $1.11. XRP had earlier started rebounding from a June 11 low of $1.09 and climbed to $1.29 on June 15, but later gave back part of those gains.

In the short term, the market is watching $1.29 and around $1. XRP has repeatedly failed since mid-May to break above $1.29, the 50-day moving average on a daily chart. That means the area has solidified as short-term resistance. XRP is currently moving in a range between support at $1.05 and resistance at $1.29.

The price rose 1.24 percent over the past 24 hours to $1.14. That reflected a relief rebound across the broader cryptocurrency market. If buying continues, XRP needs to clearly break above $1.29. If it moves past that level, the next target cited is $1.54, the 200-day moving average on a daily chart, followed by $2. If the decline strengthens again, the next area that bullish buyers may need to defend is likely to be $1.

Separate from the price move, the Ripple ecosystem also saw updates on technical work and business expansion. Security company Common Prefix said it would work with the RippleX team as part of security work related to the XRPL lending protocol and single-asset vaults. The two sides plan to use Lean4 to formally verify key components of the lending protocol.

A network software update also went ahead. xrpld 3.2.0, released this week, is a version focused on cleanup and maintenance. The update organizes amendments that have been active for more than 2 years and continued modularization work on libxrpl. It also changed the name from rippled to xrpld in line with XLS-0095. An amendment called "fixCleanup3_2_0" was added as well. It bundles bug fixes affecting single-asset vaults, the lending protocol, a permissioned decentralized exchange, multi-purpose tokens and permissioned domains.

Ripple also reported an investment. Ripple said it participated in Flutterwave's Series E funding round. The deal focused on expanding the use of stablecoins in cross-border payments. Flutterwave will be connected to Ripple Payments and plans to use the XRP Ledger blockchain for transaction processing.

As a result, support around $1 and whether XRP can break through resistance at $1.29 have emerged as key near-term variables. At the same time, verification of the XRPL lending protocol, the xrpld maintenance update and Ripple's move to expand its payments network are proceeding in parallel, making both price and ecosystem issues key points for the market to watch.