XRP Price Forecast - XRP-USD Holds Around $1.54 As Market Weighs $1.50 Support And Risk Toward $1.00

XRP-USD Volatile Around $1.50–$1.60 With Clear Risk Back Toward $1.00

Short-Term XRP-USD Price Context And Volatility Regime

XRP-USD is trading in a stressed range after a sharp correction. Spot has slid roughly twenty percent over the last week, tagging lows near $1.53 before stabilising around $1.54–$1.60. From the early January spike close to $2.42, the token has surrendered roughly one third of its value, and it now trades about 56% below last year’s high around $3.65. Daily swings of one to three percent are common, with intraday moves amplified by liquidations in leveraged derivatives. The tape shows repeated spikes both up and down as stops are triggered on either side, which is exactly what you expect when a crowded high-beta name is repriced under tighter macro conditions.

Macro And Policy Backdrop: Fed, Warsh And Dollar Liquidity Versus XRP

Macro is currently a headwind for XRP-USD. The market is adjusting to the idea that the Federal Reserve will cut less and keep real yields higher for longer. The nomination of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair has reinforced expectations of a leaner Fed balance sheet and a more conservative stance on quantitative support. Futures now price about two cuts for 2026, instead of the deeper easing path traders were entertaining a few weeks ago. A smaller balance sheet and fewer cuts mean less excess liquidity to chase speculative risk, and that has hit high-beta crypto hardest. The broad digital-asset complex is down around fifteen percent on the week, with XRP underperforming that basket. Forced deleveraging has magnified the move: more than half a billion dollars of long crypto positions have been liquidated in the last twenty-four hours alone, including roughly $6.6 million in XRP longs. That kind of mechanical selling drives price through support, widens spreads, and leaves spot trading at a discount to where it might sit in a cleaner macro tape.

Regulatory Progress: EU EMI Licence As A Long-Term Positive For XRP

Structurally, the regulatory narrative is moving the other way and supports the long-term case for XRP-USD. Ripple has secured a full Electronic Money Institution licence from Luxembourg’s regulator, the CSSF, after an initial approval phase. This licence allows the group to issue electronic money and run payment services within the European Union’s harmonised framework. Because Luxembourg is an EU member, the permission can be passported across the bloc, effectively giving Ripple a regulated foothold for Ripple Payments in all key European markets. This kind of licence is highly relevant for banks, payment firms and corporates that have to justify their vendor selection to compliance teams. It signals that the infrastructure can operate inside an EU-grade regulatory perimeter instead of sitting in a grey zone. For XRP-USD, the impact is indirect but important. As more regulated payment volume migrates onto Ripple’s rails, the incentive to hold and use XRP for settlement and liquidity grows. However, that translation from licence to real transactional volume will take time and will not rescue short-term price action driven by macro and flows.

XRPL Permissioned Domains: Institutional Infrastructure Upgrade, Not An Immediate Price Catalyst

The XRP Ledger is also activating Permissioned Domains under the XLS-80 amendment, backed by more than ninety percent of validators, which clears the supermajority threshold. These domains are credential-controlled environments on the public XRPL. They are not separate private chains; instead, they are rule-based access layers built on the XLS-70 credentials framework. Domain operators can define which credentials are required, and any account presenting an accepted credential automatically becomes a participant without additional manual onboarding. The logic is straightforward: regulated institutions want the transparency and settlement speed of a public chain but must obey strict KYC, AML and access-control rules. Permissioned Domains give them a way to operate on XRPL while enforcing those constraints. From an economic angle, this is a foundation rather than an end product. It enables subsequent features such as permissioned decentralised exchanges or tokenised financial instruments that still clear on XRPL and consume XRP for fees and settlement. The amendment does not alter unit supply or the fee schedule directly, so it does not mechanically change demand today. Its relevance for XRP-USD will depend on whether banks, brokers and asset platforms actually build live products on top of this capability over the next few years.

Flows: ETF Outflows, Thinner Inflows And Derivatives Liquidations Around XRP-USD

Spot XRP ETFs were a powerful support in late 2025, but that support has weakened sharply. When the products launched in November, net inflows were close to $666 million, followed by roughly $500 million in December. January told a different story, with net creations falling to about $15.6 million and more than $52 million in reported outflows across the complex. These vehicles usually act as an important buffer. When there is net demand, they soak up supply from the open market and reduce pressure on spot order books. When inflows stall or reverse, that buffer disappears and secondary-market selling hits spot directly. This is exactly the dynamic visible now: larger accounts have used the weakness to reduce exposure rather than averaging down, and ETF demand is not offsetting that selling. Combine this with the derivatives liquidations mentioned earlier and the picture is clear. Short-term flows are negative, and until ETF data stabilise or turn positive again, XRP-USD will struggle to sustain a durable trend higher.

On-Chain Fundamentals: Weak DeFi Traction, Low TVL And Falling Burn Rate For XRP

On-chain metrics do not currently justify aggressive bullish positioning in XRP-USD. According to the latest aggregates, XRPL DeFi total value locked is about $54.6 million spread across nineteen protocols, down more than thirty percent from early January levels. That drop illustrates declining user engagement and capital commitment to XRPL-based DeFi. Lower TVL means fewer active strategies, shallower liquidity pools and reduced transaction volumes, all of which translate into weaker organic fee and burn dynamics. The burn rate has collapsed in parallel. Daily burns have fallen from more than 4,500 XRP in August last year to just 523 units on February third. Because base-layer fees are the main source of permanent supply reduction, such a low burn rate signals that the network is not currently operating anywhere near capacity. The long-run supply story for XRP is still favourable, but in the current state the chain is not generating the level of economic activity that would let that supply profile dominate price action.

Technical Structure: Descending Channel, Moving Averages And Critical Supports On XRP-USD

The weekly chart for XRP-USD remains structurally bearish. Price is moving inside a descending parallel channel, with rallies failing repeatedly at the upper boundary. On the daily view, the token trades below the 20-, 50- and 100-day moving averages, all of which have started to roll over. That alignment confirms that momentum over the last weeks is negative and that the path of least resistance is still down. The market has printed five consecutive red weekly candles, pushing price back toward a cluster of important reference levels. One key band sits around $1.56, defined as a Murrey Math pivot and as a prior balance zone where buyers and sellers repeatedly met. Just below, the psychological $1.50 handle is a natural focal point for stops and option strikes. Losing this zone on a closing basis would confirm that the channel is still in full control and would likely accelerate the move toward deeper supports. On the downside, a major structural target remains the $1.00 round number, with a secondary objective near $0.78, identified as a strong reversal region on the same Murrey framework used by one of the more bearish structural analyses. Those levels only come into play if the current support band breaks decisively, but they must be on the radar.

Golden Pocket, Elliott Waves And The Tactical Relief-Bounce Case For XRP-USD

Despite the negative structure, there is a credible short-term relief-bounce setup in XRP-USD based on Fibonacci and Elliott-wave mapping. One detailed wave count flags that XRP has tagged a “Golden Pocket” around the 0.618 retracement of the prior impulsive leg, with wave three aligning neatly with a 1.618 extension near $1.93. In that framework, the current move lower is the tail end of a corrective flush into the pocket, which should be followed by a wave-four relief rally. The nearest resistance on that path is around $1.78, which coincides with a previous breakdown zone and a local Fibonacci retracement. A stronger bounce could revisit the $1.93 region, effectively retracing the latest leg down. Above that, a larger pivot sits near $2.03, which lines up with a macro fifty percent retracement. Reclaiming that level and turning it into support would be the key signal that a sustained advance toward the $2.50 area can unfold without forcing another deep corrective wave first. Oscillators lend some support to this tactical bullish view. The latest push to the $1.53–$1.54 lows has created bullish divergence on momentum indicators, where price made a lower low but the indicator troughs did not follow. That pattern often precedes short-term squeezes in oversold assets, particularly after liquidation cascades have cleared leveraged longs. However, the same wave map warns that failure to hold current levels could still drag XRP-USD into the $1.47 region before any more durable upside attempt materialises. Nothing in this setup is confirmed until resistance levels are broken and held.

Sentiment, Narrative Split And What The Market Is Actually Trading In XRP-USD

Market narrative around XRP-USD is fractured. One camp focuses on regulation and infrastructure: the EU EMI licence, the Permissioned Domains upgrade and the broader idea of XRPL as a compliant settlement layer for tokenised finance. That group is comfortable with multi-year horizons and sees every structural improvement as validation that the ecosystem will matter for cross-border payments and institutional DeFi. Another camp is trading flows and macro almost exclusively. For that side, ETF outflows, shrinking net inflows, elevated liquidations and high real yields matter far more than long-term structural upgrades that have yet to translate into revenue or on-chain utilisation. In the very short term, this second camp is dictating price, because each macro headline around the Fed, inflation or growth forecasts immediately shows up in XRP-USD positioning. Until spot ETF flows stabilise and derivatives positioning normalises, good news on the regulatory or infrastructure front will likely be faded rather than chased.

Forward Path For XRP-USD: Levels, Scenarios And Bias (Buy, Sell Or Hold)

Taken together, the data point to three main paths for XRP-USD. A clean bearish extension materialises if the $1.56–$1.50 zone fails on a weekly close. In that case, the descending channel remains dominant, former necklines near $1.60 harden into resistance, and the market will logically probe toward $1.00, with $0.78 as a deeper structural target. A sideways-base scenario develops if XRP defends $1.50–$1.56 but repeatedly fails below $1.78–$1.93. That would produce a choppy range while macro and flows reset, ETF numbers stabilise and the impact of Permissioned Domains and the EU licence is tested in real deployments. The more tactical bullish outcome comes if the Golden Pocket setup plays out and XRP-USD clears $1.78, retests $1.93, and then breaks and holds above $2.03. Under that path, an extension into the $2.50 region becomes realistic, and the worst of the current correction would likely be behind the token. Given the current mix of tight macro, negative ETF flows, weak on-chain utilisation and a still-bearish channel, the base case leans cautious. The structural story has improved, but the tape and the flows do not yet confirm a lasting turn. On balance, that profile aligns more with a hold stance on XRP-USD at current levels, with a clear downside skew toward $1.00–$0.78 if support breaks and a defined upside path through $1.78–$2.03–$2.50 only if the relief-bounce scenario turns into a sustained trend.

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