XRP Price Forecast: XRP-USD $1.40 Support vs. $1.50 Ceiling as Whales Target the Next Big Move

XRP-USD – Current market position

Short-term trading band and immediate price structure

XRP-USD is trading roughly in the 1.40–1.45 dollar area after a sharp reset from recent highs. Over the last month the token has lost around 32 percent and in the last week alone the drop is near 12 percent from the post-bounce levels. Structurally since the failed push toward the 2025 peak, the weekly chart still shows a clear series of lower highs and lower lows, which means the dominant trend remains down despite fast rallies inside the range. The recent flush toward roughly 1.10 dollars triggered an aggressive rebound, but that bounce stalled under the 1.50–1.55 resistance band, leaving XRP trapped in a short-term corridor roughly between 1.41–1.42 as support and 1.50–1.55 as the first serious ceiling. Below current price, the important reference points remain 1.15 as the first line of demand, the psychological 1.00 level, and then deeper zones near 0.75 and 0.50 where historic buying interest reappeared in earlier cycles.

Macro environment and Russia’s legalisation bill

Short-term behavior in XRP-USD is still heavily linked to the global macro setup. The market is processing Trump’s nomination of Kevin Warsh for the Federal Reserve chair, which keeps uncertainty around the rate path elevated and forces risk assets to react to every data print. Jobs and inflation numbers due this week are flagged as potential high-volatility catalysts for cryptocurrencies as a group, because softer inflation would support earlier rate cuts while stubborn data would keep policy restrictive for longer. At the same time, Russia has introduced a bill that in theory legalizes XRP and broader crypto access for its entire population of roughly 146 million people. On paper that looks like a major structural opening, but price action has treated it as noise so far: XRP is still hovering around 1.40–1.45 dollars and there is no evidence of a sudden capital wave flowing in from that region. The tape is clearly signaling that flows and positioning matter more right now than positive headlines that have not yet translated into sustained demand.

On-chain stress: exchange inflows and SOPR slipping below 1.0

On-chain data underlines the stress in the system. The 30-day moving average of XRP exchange inflows climbed from about 6.6 million tokens at the start of February to a peak near 10.7 million within the first week, an increase of roughly 62 percent. Moving coins from cold storage into exchange wallets is a textbook precursor to potential selling because venues offer the deepest liquidity and the fastest execution. At the same time the 7-day Spent Output Profit Ratio has slipped from around 1.16 in mid-2025 to approximately 0.96, which means that on average market participants are now realising losses when they sell. Historically this combination of heavier inflows into exchanges and SOPR below 1 tends to appear in the later part of a down-leg, when emotional and forced selling dominate. It does not guarantee an immediate rebound, but it usually marks a phase where weak hands are being cleared out and where the next move is often either a grinding drift lower or a slow base instead of a fresh vertical collapse.

Oversold momentum, the 1.55 zone and a 25 percent downside window

Momentum indicators confirm how stretched the last leg was. On shorter timeframes the Relative Strength Index for XRP-USD dropped toward 17, a deeply oversold reading that statistically supports a technical bounce regardless of the larger trend. That rebound path is where the 1.55 dollar area becomes critical. This level is the prior lower low on the daily chart, it already capped an advance on 6 February, and it is now the reference zone many large players are watching. One prominent flow-based view is straightforward: a recovery into 1.55 dollars offers an attractive point to reload short exposure, with a downside road back toward 1.15 dollars. From that zone the implied drawdown for XRP is about 25 percent, which is the same magnitude of upside for participants who lean short into that resistance. In other words, the market is between legs: the oversold bounce has started, but the real decision on whether this is just a dead-cat move or the start of something stronger will be made around 1.50–1.55.

Whale flows, record sentiment and the 1.50 pivot

On-chain flows and sentiment around the 1.50 dollar band are extreme. The ledger has registered about 1,389 transfers of 100,000 dollars or more in the current window and active wallets are hovering near 78,700. That shows concentrated activity from large holders at the same time that a major analytics source reports record crowd optimism for XRP. This mix is powerful and dangerous: when price is pushing into a known resistance band and social mood reaches new highs, that optimism often becomes a contrarian warning rather than a healthy support. The 1.50 zone is therefore more than a simple chart line; it is the point where technical resistance, whale positioning and crowd psychology intersect. A daily close above 1.50 and ideally above 1.55, accompanied by higher volume and no renewed surge in exchange inflows, would strengthen the bullish case. Multiple rejections from that band on heavy sell volume, with inflows and social hype cooling at the same time, would confirm that 1.50–1.55 remains a supply wall and that late buyers are being trapped.

Medium-term structure and deeper demand pockets at 1.00, 0.75 and 0.50

On the weekly timeframe XRP-USD still carries the scars of the post-2025 peak. Repeated attempts to sustain the all-time high failed and left behind a string of lower highs and lower lows, a classic bearish staircase. The recent rebound from near 1.10 dollars did not change that pattern; it is still a counter-move inside a broader decline. When price is viewed from a distance, the chart shows limited structural demand between the current region and the 0.50–0.75 pocket. The 1.15 level is the first visible support, followed by the round 1.00 area that carries psychological weight. Below that, prior cycles show aggressive bidding around 0.75 and again closer to 0.50. At the same time derivatives metrics show open interest declining alongside price, which means positions are being closed out instead of new leverage being stacked aggressively on the short side. That behavior usually characterizes late-trend fatigue where the path of least resistance is sideways or a slow grind rather than a clean waterfall, unless a new macro shock emerges.

Ripple’s institutional custody, staking and DeFi metrics

Away from the chart, Ripple continues to build infrastructure around XRP with a clear institutional focus. Ripple Custody has added partnerships with Figment to provide staking for networks like Ethereum and Solana through a non-custodial infrastructure that banks and custodians can tap without building their own validator stacks. At the same time a tie-up with Securosys integrates CyberVault Hardware Security Modules and CloudHSM into Ripple’s custody stack, letting financial institutions deploy key management solutions either on-premise or in the cloud with tighter control. These moves follow the acquisition of Palisade and the integration of advanced compliance tools, making the overall custody offering more credible for regulated entities that care about governance, audit trails and security. However, classic on-chain usage metrics still show restrained activity: XRPL’s DeFi total value locked has slipped from roughly 80 million dollars at the start of January to about 49.6 million now, while stablecoin capitalization on XRPL sits near 415.85 million dollars and is growing only gradually. The message is simple: the pipes for institutional finance are getting stronger, but the current price still reflects speculative flows more than real institutional volume.

XRP Community Day 2026 and the institutional DeFi roadmap

XRP Community Day 2026 is the main near-term narrative catalyst for the ecosystem. The event focuses on programmability, smart extensions and enhanced contract functionality on the XRP Ledger, all aimed at expanding what builders can deploy without sacrificing efficiency and security. Zero-knowledge proof technology is being explored to add privacy and scalability for more complex financial activity, which is crucial for banks and regulated platforms that want confidentiality and compliance at the same time. Permissioned domains and enhancements to decentralized exchange logic are being presented as tools to run compliant workflows behind the scenes while keeping the user experience as frictionless as possible. Native lending, institutional DeFi tools, collateral management, and on-chain credit are all part of the roadmap RippleX and community engineers are outlining. Wrapped XRP is another point of emphasis, allowing XRP to move into ecosystems like Solana and tap new liquidity and DeFi strategies. Sessions with Brad Garlinghouse, Monica Long and other leaders are designed to link these technical upgrades directly to settlement, liquidity provision and real-world financial services. All of this strengthens the long-term thesis but the impact on pricing will depend on how quickly these concepts translate into measurable volumes and revenues.

Extreme long-term scenarios and the 10,000-dollar narrative

One highly optimistic roadmap currently circulating in the market imagines XRP-USD moving through a sequence of milestones toward four-digit and even five-digit pricing. The hypothetical path starts with a break of the old 3.84 dollar high, then a run toward 18 dollars as an extended wave, a further climb to around 80 dollars and finally an acceleration to a zone near 1,000 dollars before an ultimate 10,000-dollar mark under a world in which XRP becomes a core settlement currency across global banking rails and tokenized assets. That narrative assumes early institutional utilization, expanding liquidity corridors, and full integration of XRP into cross-border settlements and global asset tokenization. In market-cap terms even a 1,000-dollar price would imply a multi-trillion-dollar valuation, a level that would put XRP on par with or above many major asset classes. A 10,000-dollar level would require a complete re-wiring of the existing financial system with XRP at the center. As a scenario map it shows how far sentiment can stretch, but under current adoption, liquidity and regulatory conditions it is not a realistic base case. The practical takeaway is this: aggressive long-term targets exist, but the tape and the flows still demand proof, not stories.

Short-term trading framework around the 1.50–1.55 band

For the next weeks the framework for XRP-USD revolves around how price behaves at 1.50–1.55 dollars. On the constructive side, a daily close above 1.50 and ideally above 1.55, backed by higher spot volume than recent sessions, stable or cooling derivatives funding, and a slowdown in exchange inflows, would turn that band from resistance into support. In that case pullbacks toward 1.50–1.55 that hold could extend the move toward zones like 1.80–2.00 where prior liquidity clusters sit. On the negative side, repeated intraday rejections from 1.50–1.55 with strong sell volume and renewed spikes in whale transfers to exchanges would confirm that large holders are using the bounce to distribute. That pattern keeps the focus on a retest of 1.15 and potentially 1.10, and if the 1.00 psychological level breaks conclusively the market would likely start probing the 0.75 area and possibly 0.50 later in the year. With open interest already fading, a slow grind remains more probable than a sudden collapse, but 1.00 remains a clear line that would trigger forced selling if it fails.

XRP-USD price ranges and directional bias for 2026

Bringing the pieces together, the one-to-three-month horizon points to a working range between roughly 1.10 and 1.80 dollars, with a high probability that 1.15 or slightly below will be tested again if the 1.50–1.55 corridor caps the current rebound. Sustained trade above 2 dollars in that time frame would require a clean reclaim and hold of 1.55, a cooperative macro backdrop with softer inflation and a clear shift in flows from distribution toward accumulation. On a six-to-twelve-month view and assuming no severe global recession, a gradual easing in policy, and tangible delivery on the XRPL institutional roadmap, a realistic optimistic band sits between 3.50 and 5.00 dollars, where XRP would retest and marginally exceed its historical peak without relying on extreme assumptions. On the downside, if macro conditions deteriorate or regulation turns hostile and the 1.00 area is lost decisively, a prolonged base in the 0.50–0.75 region becomes plausible before any new major cycle forms.

Final stance on XRP-USD: Hold with a bearish short-term skew

Given the current data, XRP-USD does not sit in an obvious bargain zone at around 1.40–1.45 dollars. The weekly trend is still down, on-chain indicators show loss realisation and heavy exchange inflows, and whales are active near a major resistance band while sentiment is stretched. At the same time a lot of emotional selling is already underway and the infrastructure story around custody, staking, programmability and institutional DeFi is stronger than it was a year ago. The clean label for this setup is Hold with a short-term bias tilted toward further pressure as long as the 1.50–1.55 band caps advances. If XRP can reclaim that zone on convincing volume, with funding and exchange flows supporting the move, the bias can shift toward a more constructive 2026 path targeting the 3.50–5.00 region over the medium term. Until that happens, respecting the downtrend and treating 1.50–1.55 as the decisive pivot is the disciplined approach.

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