XRP Price Forecast: $2.00 Support Keeps a Run Toward $2.58 Alive

XRP Price Forecast: $2.00 Support Keeps a Run Toward $2.58 Alive

Whale accumulation, XRP ETFs and Ripple’s bank approval clash with weak momentum as XRP-USD battles to defend the $2.00 zone into year-end | That's TradingNEWS

TradingNEWS Archive 12/13/2025 5:27:45 PM
Crypto XRP/USD XRP USD RIPPLE

XRP-USD Price Forecast:Can $2.00 Hold as Bulls Target $2.58?

XRP-USD Price At $2.03: Market Locked Around a Critical Line

XRP (XRP-USD) is trading around $2.03 today, with an intraday band near $2.05–$1.98 and a market cap of roughly $123 billion on about $2.7 billion in 24-hour volume. The market is clearly treating $2.00 as the main dividing line: hold it, and the story stays “controlled consolidation”; lose it, and you open the door to a much deeper reset, with some models still flagging downside risk toward the $1.20 area if support fails convincingly. Price is not reacting like a runaway momentum trade. It’s behaving like a range-bound asset in the middle of a bigger tug-of-war between macro risk, ETF demand, whale positioning, and a still-bearish medium-term chart.

XRP-USD Technical Structure: Bearish Channel, Bullish Divergence

On the daily chart, XRP-USD is still trapped in a descending channel that began after the October high. Every rebound has stalled under the upper boundary of this channel, confirming that the dominant structure is still corrective, not impulsive. Price sits around $2.03, below both the 100-day and 200-day MAs, with the 200-day MA clustered near $2.50, right inside a major daily supply zone that previously triggered aggressive selling. The key overhead resistance band is $2.25–$2.50 – a prior consolidation area lining up with the descending trendline and the 200-day MA. As long as XRP trades below $2.25, the market is signaling “continuation of the correction,” not a confirmed reversal. Below current levels, the main demand zone sits around $1.90–$1.75, which marked the strongest bounce of this corrective leg and coincides with the lower boundary of the larger channel. On lower timeframes, the 4-hour structure is forming a tight, downward-tilted compression. Local rallies keep failing in the $2.10–$2.15 area – a short-term supply zone aligned with a minor descending trendline. Each rejection sends XRP-USD back toward the $2.00 psychological floor. If $2.00 finally gives way, liquidity will likely be dragged toward $1.90–$1.85, and, if that fails, down toward $1.81–$1.75. The one clearly constructive signal is momentum: between Dec 1 and Dec 12, price made a lower low, while RSI printed a higher low – a textbook bullish divergence. That pattern, combined with the bounce off sub-$2 levels, shows selling pressure is fading, even if the broader channel remains bearish.

XRP-USD Whales: From Heavy Selling To Selective Accumulation

On-chain positioning explains why price hasn’t broken down despite aggressive selling in recent weeks. One data set shows whales dumped roughly 280 million XRP in the last week, a notional $560–$600 million of supply hitting the market around and just below the $2 zone. A more recent slice of data shows a pivot: wallets holding more than 1 billion XRP increased their balance from 25.36 billion to 25.42 billion, adding 60 million XRP, while wallets in the 100 million–1 billion XRP band turned from net sellers to net buyers, raising holdings from 8.08 billion to 8.15 billion, another 70 million XRP. Combined, those two cohorts bought around 130 million XRP, roughly $264 million at today’s $2.03 price, stepping in near the same levels where retail worries about a break of $2. Net picture: the earlier phase was whale-driven on the sell side, pushing XRP below previous supports and under heavy moving-average resistance. The current phase shows the largest, most patient wallets accumulating into weakness rather than exiting, which is what you want to see if a medium-term bottom is forming inside a correction. This doesn’t guarantee a breakout, but it raises the bar for a crash: to really crack $1.90–$1.75 and send price toward $1.20, you now need either a fresh risk-off macro shock or another coordinated wave of whale distribution. Right now, the data says the biggest holders are leaning against that scenario, not with it.

XRP-USD Macro And Crypto Backdrop: Strong Micro Story, Tough Tape

The XRP-USD tape has to be read inside the broader crypto regime. Bitcoin is hovering near $90,000, but price action has turned choppy, with recent days showing failed attempts to extend higher and increasing talk of a soft correction or stealth distribution. Ethereum trades under pressure around $3,120, with some ETH vehicles seeing net outflows. Overall crypto market cap has slipped more than 2% recently, with risk appetite rotating away from high-beta altcoins and toward majors and stablecoins. XRP rarely trades in isolation: when BTC dominance rises and macro risk wobbles on Fed path uncertainty, equity volatility, and cross-asset de-risking, the bar for any altcoin breakout moves higher. In that context, even strong XRP-specific news is being sold into rather than chased. The practical result is simple: upside in XRP-USD is likely capped into the $2.20–$2.50 region unless or until the macro tape turns clearly risk-on again.

XRP-USD Institutional Access And ETF Flows: Nearly $1B Of Sticky Demand

The structural change in 2025 is the ETF-driven demand behind XRP-USD. Recent figures show ~$16 million in daily spot XRP ETF inflows, with cumulative net inflows around $974.5 million since the first products listed. The Bitwise XRP ETF began trading on November 20, 2025 under ticker XRP, while 21Shares XRP ETF (TOXR) came online in mid-December after the SEC’s updated crypto ETP rules streamlined approvals. These funds have created a persistent, rules-based bid that absorbs supply near round levels, especially around $2.00. Structurally, this does two things: it installs a mechanical buyer under the market so long as flows stay positive, and it gradually shifts ownership from pure speculative traders toward institutions and advisory channels, which can dampen the most extreme intraday volatility. But ETFs are a two-sided channel. If macro sentiment deteriorates and those products flip to net outflows, they can become a concentrated source of selling pressure. That’s why XRP keeps retesting $2 despite heavy cumulative inflows: the ETF bid is real, but it operates inside a choppy, uncertainty-heavy macro environment that can override micro positives in the short term.

XRP-USD Regulatory And Banking Catalyst: OCC Trust Charter As Long-Term Leverage

The OCC’s conditional approval for Ripple to pursue a U.S. national trust bank charter is a long-term structural catalyst rather than a short-term trading trigger. Ripple now has an approximately 18-month runway to meet capital, governance, and operational standards before the charter becomes fully effective. A national trust bank can provide digital-asset custody and fiduciary services under a federal regulatory umbrella, even if it doesn’t operate like a traditional deposit-taking or lending bank. For XRP-USD, this reinforces the “regulated rails” narrative: major institutions, banks, and corporates that need a clear legal framework for custody, settlement, and tokenization can plug into Ripple’s stack with greater confidence. That doesn’t mean XRP is the product being chartered, but it does mean the asset sits closer to a regulated infrastructure core rather than at the perimeter of the system. Short term, much of this story was partly priced during the run to $2+, which is why the announcement did not trigger a parabolic move. Medium and long term, it improves the odds that any future risk-on cycle will see XRP-USD trade with a higher accepted ceiling, as regulatory uncertainty is gradually replaced by supervised, bank-like infrastructure.

 

RP-USD DeFi And Cross-Chain Liquidity: wXRP As A Utility Bridge

The launch of wrapped XRP (wXRP) by Hex Trust is the other big structural pillar supporting XRP-USD beyond ETFs and charters. wXRP is a 1:1-backed representation of native XRP, minted when XRP is deposited into segregated custody and burned when redeemed. It debuted with over $100 million in TVL, giving it immediate liquidity. Crucially, wXRP is designed to operate across multiple chains – including Solana, Optimism, Ethereum, HyperEVM – and is explicitly positioned for pairing against RLUSD, a regulated USD-backed stablecoin with a market cap around $1 billion. For the XRP stack, this opens three key avenues. First, XRP can now be deployed across DeFi ecosystems as collateral, in lending pools, and in yield strategies without forcing holders to fully exit their XRP exposure. Second, market makers gain the ability to bridge liquidity across centralized and decentralized venues using a unified wrapped representation, which over time can narrow spreads and deepen books. Third, pairing against RLUSD gives XRP a more institutionally palatable trading rail, especially for desks that must operate inside a compliant, USD-denominated framework. Purely on price, the impact is still overshadowed by macro and by the dominant descending channel. Strategically, though, ETF access plus wXRP plus a trust-bank path is a clear pivot from “XRP as a lobbying-heavy payments token” to “XRP as part of a regulated, multi-chain liquidity and settlement stack.”

XRP-USD Risk Map And Directional Bias: Range With A Bullish Lean Above $2.00

From a risk–reward angle, the XRP-USD setup is defined by three concrete zones. On the downside, $2.00 is the immediate line that needs to hold; a clean break with confirmation reopens $1.90–$1.85, then $1.81–$1.75, and down the line, some bear models still flag $1.20 as a stress-test area if macro conditions deteriorate and whale flows reverse. On the upside, the first meaningful hurdle is a daily close above $2.11, roughly a 3.7% move from the current $2.03 print; that would confirm that buyers are regaining short-term control rather than just defending support. Above that, $2.21 is the next pivot: only sustained trade over $2.21–$2.25 would start to break the descending structure and reopen the path toward $2.50–$2.58. Right now, the structure is constructive but not resolved: momentum has improved via bullish divergence, whales have added roughly 130 million XRP (around $264 million) on the long side, ETF flows remain net positive and close to $1 billion since launch, and the regulatory–infrastructure story keeps getting stronger. Against that, the dominant daily trend is still downward, and the broader crypto market is cautious. Net bias with all data on the table: XRP-USD is a range trade with a modest bullish tilt as long as $2.00 holds, with genuine trend reversal requiring a break and hold above $2.21–$2.25 backed by continued whale accumulation, persistent ETF inflows, and a friendlier macro tape.

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