XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) has had a rough 12 months. It’s down 44% from where it traded this time last year, with six straight months of losses erasing the gains it made after hitting its $3.65 cycle high last July. At $1.37 today, a $1,000 bet on XRP at May 2025’s price of $2.40 is now worth about $570.
However, the XRP price has come back from worse sell-offs before. And the catalysts that could drive the next move are more concrete now than they’ve been in the past two years. So, when could XRP finally recover?
What Caused the 44% XRP Drop
XRP’s decline over the past 12 months came from three factors.
Six Straight Months of Selling
U.S. tariff announcements in October 2025 set off the largest liquidation in crypto history, wiping out leveraged bets and dragging XRP down alongside Bitcoin and stocks.
XRP fell 10.8% in October 2025 alone, then it dropped another 13.8% in November, breaking below its ascending channel—a rising pattern where the price trades between an upward support line and resistance line. Once the price breaks below it, it means the uptrend is weakening.
Goldman Sachs Sold Its Entire Position
A 13F filing is the report big institutions file with the SEC every quarter to show what they’re holding. In its Q1 2026 filing, Goldman Sachs revealed it had sold its entire XRP ETF position—roughly $154 million spread across Bitwise, Franklin Templeton, Grayscale, and 21Shares. It had only built that position one quarter earlier, entering XRP ETFs in late 2025 as the largest disclosed institutional buyer. But by March 31, 2026, it held nothing.
The amount Goldman sold was almost exactly what it paid to get in, which suggests this was a clean exit rather than a panic sale at a loss. And here’s the part a lot of people get wrong: Goldman wasn’t really holding those positions for itself. It was all trading-desk activity done on behalf of clients.
Macro Conditions Kept Money Tight
XRP was fighting the same backdrop that weighed on the whole crypto market through 2025 and into early 2026. High interest rates, rising Treasury yields, and worries about an AI-driven market bubble pushed investors away from risky bets—and that blunted the impact of ETF launches and regulatory progress.
Treasury yields climbed to their highest since mid-2025 as inflation data pushed expectations for rate cuts further out. Oil above $100 kept the pressure on too.
Still, XRP held up better than most. It fell 11% in 2025, against Bitcoin’s 18% drop and Ethereum’s 27% slide. That tells you Ripple’s regulatory progress gave XRP some support—just not enough to break the broader trend.
What a 44% XRP Price Recovery Would Look Like
XRP has recovered from worse—a 95% downturn in 2018 and a 78% crash in 2022—and came back both times. The question now is which sort of recovery is realistic from here.
| Prediction | Target | Upside | Key Factors |
| Bull | $5-$8 | +265% to +484% | CLARITY Act passes full Senate, ETF inflows reach $10B |
| Base | $2.50-$3.50 | +82% to +155% | CLARITY Act signs August–September, moderate inflows |
| Bear | $1.10-$1.30 | -5% to -20% | CLARITY Act stalls, macro stays tight |
Bull Case: $5–$8
Standard Chartered first set an $8 target for XRP in 2026, then cut it to $2.80 after February’s crash. Even that lower number is still roughly 100% above where XRP trades now. We think the higher end is reachable this year, but it depends on two things lining up: the CLARITY Act clearing the full Senate, and ETF inflows building to $3–$5 billion.
One level could decide XRP’s move higher. If XRP breaks past the $1.45–$1.55 resistance zone, there’s around $3 billion in short positions clustered just above it that could get squeezed. When traders are forced to buy back their shorts, that buying alone can push the price 30–50% higher in a matter of days—even without a wave of fresh buyers showing up.
Base Case: $2.50–$3.50
This one assumes the CLARITY Act gets signed in August or September instead of June, ETF inflows keep coming in steadily, and XRP climbs back above its 200-day moving average near $1.88. That moving average is the line a lot of analysts watch as the divide between a bear market and a real recovery.
If all that happens, XRP could trade in a $2.50–$3.50 range, with a stronger macro supporting the top end.
Bear Case: $1.10–$1.30
If the CLARITY Act misses its Senate window and slips to a later session—Senator Cynthia Lummis warned that failing in 2026 could push the next real shot at crypto legislation all the way to 2030. That means XRP would lose the one catalyst that could separate it from Bitcoin and the rest of the market.
In that case, XRP could fall back to test the $1.10–$1.30 support zone. And the descending triangle that’s been forming since February 2026 risks breaking lower, toward a $0.53 target, if the $1.28–$1.30 floor gives way.
Can XRP Get Back to $2.40 Before the Year Ends?
XRP will recover, but it needs to clear the 200-day moving average near $1.88 before it gets anywhere near $2.40. With the CLARITY Act now cleared from committee and heading to the full Senate floor, the next 60 days matter more for XRP’s price than any stretch in over a year.
Holders who bought at May 2025’s $2.40 are still underwater—but the legislative and ETF catalysts that could change that are closer than at any point in this sell-off. So, a weekly close above $1.88 is still the line that separates a short-lived bounce from an actual recovery.
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