As of Wednesday afternoon, XRP had a market capitalization of roughly $28 billion—in contrast with roughly $25 billion earlier than the Ripple ruling—however that’s after reaching $43 billion on July 20, when it traded for 82 cents.

XRP’s sudden tumble mirrors broader market downturns. Bitcoin, which dominates the full market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies, is down from a excessive above $31,000 on the day of the ruling to now close to $26,000. The S&P 500 is down virtually 2%, and the NASDAQ has dropped about 3%.

Nonetheless, XRP’s beneficial properties and losses are extra pronounced.

“My sense is that XRP has given up its beneficial properties each because of the basic poor crypto market efficiency and because the determination will not be conclusive,” Brian Rudick, a senior strategist at crypto buying and selling agency GSR, advised Fortune. “It is because the judgment isn’t binding precedent, the SEC is transferring to enchantment it, and full decision may take months or years.” 

The dramatic ups and downs of XRP mirror the roller-coaster trip of sentiment following the disclosing of the preliminary Ripple ruling in mid-July. In December 2020, the SEC sued Ripple, alleging that its sale of XRP to enterprise capitalists, deep-pocketed buyers, retail prospects, and others was akin to providing unregistered securities.

For years, the litigation wound its manner by way of court docket, as many onlookers waited eagerly for its consequence amid more and more aggressive barrages from the SEC towards crypto corporations. Whether or not the court docket discovered XRP to be safety, over which the SEC would have a excessive latitude of regulatory management, or a commodity, one thing extra akin to sugar or gold, would affect how courts would interpret future circumstances—and due to this fact the way forward for the crypto trade within the U.S.

In mid-July, Decide Analisa Torres delivered a abstract judgment, discovering XRP to be a safety in its gross sales to institutional buyers, or enterprise capitalists and people from monetary corporations, and never a safety in its gross sales on secondary markets, which embrace crypto exchanges like Coinbase and Binance.

Many noticed Torres’s ruling to be a win for Ripple, and XRP virtually doubled in value in at some point. Nonetheless, for the reason that ruling, the SEC has mentioned it intends to enchantment, and one other choose in a separate piece of crypto litigation rejected the protection’s invocation of the Ripple ruling.

Furthermore, whatever the authorized battle, there’s a bigger dialogue of the cryptocurrency’s inherent usefulness, in keeping with Matt Hougan, chief funding officer at Bitwise.

“Even should you take away all of the authorized danger round XRP, there’s nonetheless the large query of whether or not it is going to acquire helpful adoption on this planet,” he advised Fortune. “After the preliminary burst of pleasure, I feel some individuals realized: There may be nonetheless an extended row to hoe.”