Ripple XRP price Forecast – XRP-USD battles to defend $1.90 after tariff shock and liquidation cascade

XRP-USD Price Structure – From $2.41 Spike to a Crowded $1.90–$2.00 Battlefield

Spot Tape and Range Context for XRP-USD

XRP-USD trades around $1.90–$2.00 on 20 January 2026, with different feeds printing between roughly $1.90, $1.93 and $1.99 after an intraday open near $2.06. The last session drove price below the $2.00 psychological handle more than once, and every bounce back above $2.00 is being sold into.
In the last seven days, XRP has dropped about 7–8%, with single-day moves of 3–5% on tariff headlines and liquidation spikes. From the early-January high near $2.41 on 6 January, spot is down roughly 18–20%. Year-to-date performance is still positive at around +6–7%, but most of that early burst is now gone.
On a 52-week view, XRP-USD has traded between about $1.53 and $3.65. Current prices in the $1.90–$2.00 band sit in the lower half of that range and almost 45–50% below last summer’s peak near $3.55, and still well under the old all-time high around $3.90. The market is correcting from a prior impulse, not blowing off at the top.

Macro Shock, Tariffs and the Risk-Off Hit to XRP

The trigger for this leg lower is macro, not protocol-specific. The US president re-ignited a trade-war narrative by tying 10–25% tariffs on several European economies to a political fight over Greenland. As those comments crossed, global risk assets moved from almost-greed back toward fear.
Bitcoin slipped under roughly $92,000–$93,000 and probed toward the $90,000–$91,000 area. Ethereum fell into the $3,000–$3,050 zone. XRP-USD followed, breaking $2.00, printing lows near $1.84–$1.91, and now hovering just on top of a critical $1.90 support shelf.
That macro overhang will not disappear before the Federal Reserve meeting on 27–28 January. If tariff rhetoric hardens into policy or US yields push higher again, the risk-off premium will stay elevated and high-beta names like XRP will keep absorbing the volatility first.

Liquidations, Open Interest and the Leverage Reset in XRP

The path from about $2.06 down into the $1.84–$1.91 pocket was not a calm discretionary sell; it was a classic forced clean-out. A liquidation cascade on derivatives venues drove XRP from approximately $2.06 to the low $1.90s as leveraged longs hit their margin limits.
In one 24-hour window, long futures liquidations in XRP reached roughly $5.18 million, compared with about $1.90 million in short liquidations. That is a blunt statement: the market punished buyers who chased the move above $2.00, not shorts fading the rally.
Notional open interest in XRP futures still sits near $3.41 billion, and other data show contract OI rising from about 1.40 billion XRP in November to roughly 1.76 billion XRP now, still far below the 3.1 billion XRP peak seen when price traded around $3.55 in July. Leverage is rebuilding from a lighter base, but the most recent move was a flush of over-extended longs exactly around the $2.00–$2.06 band.

Heatmap Liquidity, Short Squeeze Potential and the $4.20 Magnet in XRP

Liquidity heatmaps of the XRP-USD daily chart split the book into two clean zones. Below current price, you have pockets of long liquidation and stop-loss liquidity clustered around $1.90, $1.85 and $1.80. Above price, you see dense short-side liquidity forming around $4.20, just beyond the prior peak near $3.90.
Recent long liquidations over the weekend cleared out part of the leveraged bid. Many long positions were taken out as XRP slid from around $2.06 to $1.84–$1.91. At the same time, a thick band of short positions and stops sits in the $3.90–$4.20 area. Market makers have every incentive, over time, to drive price up into that region to force a short squeeze and harvest that liquidity, instead of permanently avoiding it.
One prominent market heatmap analysis highlighted this directly: longs were purged first, but the biggest unreached liquidity cluster is still the $4.20 band. That is a medium-term magnet, not a near-term guarantee, yet it explains why some analysts see a path to a new high above $3.90 if the market can rebuild a bullish structure.

Holder Cohorts, Realized Price and the 2022 Fractal Risk in XRP-USD

On-chain realized-price by age band paints a more uncomfortable picture for current XRP holders. The average cost basis of short-term holders (roughly 1 week to 1 month) has already sunk below the realized price of medium-term holders (6–12 months). That means the older cohort is now underwater, while the more recent entrants have a lower entry basis.
This structure mirrors the setup before the February 2022 top, which preceded a ~60% drawdown into the summer of that year. When the older cohort is sitting on losses while latecomers hold cheaper coins, selling pressure can accelerate if fear spikes again.
A separate structural diagnosis from a well-followed trader (“Dom”) argues that the January 1–6 rebound from roughly $1.85 to around $2.41 did not come from heavy spot demand. Instead, a relatively modest capital inflow ran through thin liquidity and forced shorts to cover, producing a ~30% spike. With little genuine spot accumulation under that move, the relapse from $2.41 down toward $1.90–$2.00 is not surprising.
Dom’s map is straightforward: XRP retested lows around $1.80–$1.84, which may be the last leg of a bottoming structure. But if $1.80 fails and price does not quickly reclaim $2.05, this stops being a controlled retest and turns into a deeper markdown.

ETFs, RLUSD Stablecoin and the Institutional Layer Around XRP

Despite the short-term technical damage, institutional positioning in XRP has improved. Exchange-traded products tied to XRP now hold more than $1.5 billion in assets. Since detailed tracking began, net flows have been negative only once; almost every other observation shows net inflows, even as spot price slid from about $3.55 to the current $1.90–$2.00 zone. That is not capitulation from large allocators.
On the network side, Ripple’s USD-linked stablecoin RLUSD has expanded from around $50 million in market value to roughly $1.3 billion in a year, a 26× increase. That embeds XRP’s ecosystem inside a growing transactional stack of payments, DeFi and treasury usage.
The regulatory environment has also shifted compared with the 2020–2022 cycle. The SEC case that started in 2020 over alleged unregistered XRP sales is now formally closed, with a $125 million penalty and an injunction but no ongoing overhang. Draft legislation such as the CLARITY Act is moving in a direction that would give XRP treatment closer to Bitcoin in key respects, which matters for mandates that restrict investment to certain asset classes.
Those shifts explain why ETF assets can grow, RLUSD can cross $1.3 billion, and yet spot can still trade under $2.00: macro risk and leveraged positioning are driving the short-term tape, while structural demand quietly improves underneath.

Derivatives Positioning, Open Interest and Confidence Erosion in XRP

Derivatives metrics around XRP-USD confirm that sentiment has weakened without collapsing. One large dataset shows XRP futures OI around $3.41 billion, down 4.5% in a day as traders cut exposure, and still far below the 3.1 billion XRP notional seen at last year’s peak near $3.55.
Liquidations lean heavily against longs: about $5.18 million in long positions were taken out versus roughly $1.90 million in shorts in 24 hours. That is a clear sign that speculative bulls mis-timed the breakout over $2.00 and were forced out.
Open interest in some venues has risen from 1.40 billion XRP to about 1.76 billion XRP since November, so leverage has crept higher, but we are nowhere near the extremes of the previous top. This is more of a confidence bleed than an outright structural blow-off: traders are trimming risk, not nuking positions outright.
At the same time, derivatives data flag decaying retail engagement. In a separate series, XRP futures open interest in dollar terms fell while price drifted lower, and long liquidations have repeatedly outpaced short liquidations. Retail traders are either getting stopped out or stepping aside rather than aggressively fading dips.

Short-Term Technical Map for XRP-USD – EMAs, Pivots and Momentum Gauges

On the 4-hour log chart, XRP trades below all the important moving averages. Spot sits under the 20-EMA near $2.00 and the 50-EMA around $2.04, with both slopes pointing down. The 50-EMA has already crossed below the 200-EMA, confirming a local Death Cross and a short-term bearish bias.
Classical pivot levels line up with visible price behavior. The S1 pivot sits around $1.92, almost exactly where recent candles found temporary footing. A descending support trendline connecting the January 5 and January 8 lows runs through the $1.89 region, and the S2 pivot sits deeper at $1.85.
Momentum signals are stretched. On one 4-hour set, the RSI is down near 29, firmly in oversold territory and confirming strong selling pressure. The MACD is below its signal line with a widening negative histogram, showing that bearish momentum is still building, even after the first bounce attempts around $1.90.
For bulls to regain control, XRP needs a decisive close above the descending trendline near $2.03 and then reclaim the 200-EMA at roughly $2.04 on that same 4-hour frame. That would open the door to the R1 pivot near $2.12 and then the upper Bollinger band region between $2.17–$2.30.

Daily Indicators, Bands and Moving Averages on XRP-USD

The daily picture is more mixed and explains why opinions diverge. One dataset shows RSI around 42–43, closer to neutral than oversold, which tells you the sell-off has been persistent but not yet capitulative at the daily level. Another framework, combining oscillators, even flags RSI near 66–67 with CCI above 380, which is technically “overbought” inside a still-intact trend, implying that the move from the $1.50–$1.60 floor toward $2.40 is still in play despite the pullback.
Bollinger Bands on a key setup have the lower band near $1.70, the middle band (20-SMA) around $1.93, and the upper band close to $2.17–$2.30. XRP now trades around the mid-band or slightly below it. A drop toward $1.70 would be in line with a standard two-sigma move in that structure, which fits with several short-term forecasts calling for prints near $1.69–$1.70 over the next month.
On the moving-average side, the 50-day SMA runs near $2.01, the 7-day SMA around $2.04, and the 200-day SMA way above spot at roughly $2.56–$2.57. Trading under both the 50-day and 200-day averages means XRP is still below its medium-term trend, even though the year-to-date performance is slightly positive.
Trend-strength tools confirm the move is not noise. An ADX around 35 signals a strong directional trend, and with price moving lower, the active trend is down. Fast oscillators such as Stochastics (K ~76, D ~55) and Williams %R near –5 show that rallies are getting sold and that short-term momentum is still leaning to the downside.

Forecast Ranges for XRP-USD – Near-Term Compression vs Year-End Expansion

One systematic forecast framework for XRP-USD sets a 1-month target near $1.69, about 15% below current levels, and a 3-month target around $1.66, roughly 16–17% lower. Both short-term projections imply continued pressure and are consistent with the $1.85–$1.70 support corridor highlighted by pivots and Bollinger Bands.
The same model projects a year-end 2026 level near $4.33, which would be about +115–120% above the current $1.90–$2.00 band. That target implies a long-term path that first shakes out weak hands and then rebuilds a bullish structure strong enough to break through the $2.56 200-day SMA, retest the $3.55 high and challenge the $3.90–$4.20 liquidity pocket.
Other discretionary analyst views cluster around similar lanes. Short-term, one trading desk sees a base range at $2.10–$2.40 for the next week if price can reclaim the $2.01–$2.06 resistance band, with a bull extension to $2.45–$2.70 if that resistance breaks with volume confirmation. A more aggressive fundamental call looks for $4.00 during 2026, arguing that the combination of ETF demand, structural flows and legal clarity should be enough to print a new high.
The tension between those views and the mechanical near-term forecasts explains current chop: quantitative models see a drift toward $1.69–$1.70 before any sustained recovery, while directional traders are already gaming the upside toward $2.40–$2.70 if key resistance clears.

Critical Levels and “Safe Zone” Thresholds for XRP

From a pure level-based perspective, $1.90 is the immediate line in the sand. That area has acted as both resistance and support several times and now sits exactly where price paused after the latest drop. Short-term pivot studies mark $1.92 (S1) and $1.85 (S2) as the next key waypoints.
Below that, $1.80 is the structural floor flagged by Dom’s seven-hour chart. He frames the recent dip to $1.80–$1.84 as a potential final leg in a bottoming formation. Lose that level with volume, and his map opens deeper targets. Hold it and reclaim $2.05, and the structure flips back into a safer configuration.
The “safe zone” threshold many traders now use is $2.05. That is the level XRP needs to regain to offset the drawdown from the earlier $2.41 spike and show that demand is strong enough to absorb macro shocks and liquidation flows. Above $2.05, attention shifts quickly to the $2.12 pivot, the $2.17–$2.30 band around the upper Bollinger line, and then the heavy resistance around $2.45–$2.70 that several forecasts use as a bull extension range.
On the upside roadmap, the 200-day SMA near $2.56, last year’s peak around $3.55, and the liquidity pocket between roughly $3.90–$4.20 are the big milestones. Those are the zones where shorts are trapped, where ETF demand faces the real test, and where a genuine short squeeze can unfold if the market gets there with a strong tape and a cleaner derivatives book.

Market Structure Verdict on XRP-USD – Short-Term Fragile, Long-Term Asymmetric

From a strict market-structure and data-driven view, XRP-USD sits at an uncomfortable but interesting point. Price around $1.90–$2.00 is pinned between a cluster of supports at $1.90–$1.85–$1.80 and a dense resistance stack around $2.03–$2.06, $2.12 and $2.17–$2.30. Leverage has been partially flushed but not fully reset. ETFs, RLUSD growth and regulatory momentum all point to a stronger underlying franchise than in the last cycle.
Short term, with RSI rolling over, EMAs sloping down, a Death Cross on the 4-hour and models flagging potential prints near $1.69–$1.70, the bias is fragile and bearish while XRP trades below $2.05. A clean break of $1.90 with volume puts $1.85 and $1.70 on the table quickly.
Over a 6–12 month horizon, the combination of > $1.5B in ETF assets, a $1.3B RLUSD stablecoin, rising open interest from the November base, and year-end targets around $4.00–$4.33 creates a clear asymmetry: downside of roughly 15–20% into the $1.70 zone versus quantified upside of 100%+ if XRP can retake the $2.56 200-day average and attack the $3.55–$4.20 band.
On that balance, and strictly on the numbers, the structure fits a high-risk BUY classification for a long-term, volatility-tolerant profile, with the caveat that tactical traders should respect $1.80–$1.85 as the invalidation area and $2.05 as the first “back in the safe zone” reclaim.

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