XRP Price Forecast - XRP-USD Stalls Around $1.40 After $1.65 Spike as Leverage and Policy Collide

XRP Price: Network Strength, Derivatives Risk and Policy Hype Collide

On-Chain Reality: XRP Ledger Activity Jumps 40% Toward 2.5 Million Daily Transactions

XRP Ledger is not behaving like a tired network. Successful transactions have climbed roughly 40%, with daily counts pressing toward the 2.5 million mark. That is real usage: payments, transfers and application calls, not just speculative churn. High success rates and no meaningful congestion show the infrastructure is handling heavier loads without strain, which matters once capital flows return. Structurally, the ledger looks healthy and scalable while price lags. That divergence—strong activity, weak price—usually means baseline demand exists in the background even when sentiment on the token is poor.

Price Structure: From $1.65 Spike to $1.39–$1.44 Chop Under Key Moving Averages

Price is not matching the network story. XRP squeezed to above $1.65 last weekend and then bled back, now trading roughly in the $1.39–$1.44 zone, down more than 10% on the week. It sits below several important moving averages, which keeps the medium-term structure bearish. Short-term, $1.40 is acting as a pivot: brief dips below that level have attracted buying, but every attempt to sustain above the mid-$1.40s is failing quickly. Weekly and monthly RSI sliding below 2020 lows signal a stretched downside move and the potential for a base, but price has not confirmed that yet. The current band is a classic hesitation zone: enough dip-buyers around $1.35–$1.40 to slow the fall, not enough conviction to drive a sustained run back at $1.60+.

Derivatives Pressure: 1.66 Billion XRP in Futures and a 2.56% Open-Interest Jump

Roughly 1.66 billion XRP locked in futures with a 2.56% rise in open interest over 24 hours is not a quiet backdrop. Leverage is coming back into the system. That can cut both ways. If price grinds higher from the current $1.39–$1.44 corridor while open interest edges up, that combination supports a constructive grind toward higher levels as short positions are forced to adjust. If open interest balloons without spot strength, the setup flips into a leverage trap—one sharp move flushing highly geared positions, triggering forced liquidations and exaggerated swings. The fact that weekly and monthly RSI are already compressed suggests a violent short-term move is likely; the open-interest build says it will be amplified when it comes. For now, derivatives are shaping the tape more than organic spot demand.

ETF Flows: From $1.23 Billion Cumulative Inflows to Zero-Flow Days

Early enthusiasm for XRP ETFs has evaporated. Canary’s XRPC exploded on listing in November 2025, and with four more products following, cumulative inflows quickly passed $1 billion and climbed to around $1.23 billion. That phase is over. Recent sessions have seen “$0.00” days—no reportable inflows or outflows at all—on multiple dates, with only small, choppy flows in between: outflows of roughly $40.64 million in the week ending January 23, another $52.26 million the following week, followed by a one-off +$39.04 million week and then stagnation. When half the trading week prints flat ETF flow, the message is simple: institutional capital is on the sidelines. Price briefly decoupled from this reality when XRP spiked above $1.65, but that move reversed fast. Without renewed ETF demand, any rally driven purely by derivatives and retail order flow will be fragile.

Sentiment and Positioning: Shorts Dominate While MVRV Flags Undervaluation

Flow data and positioning show a split market. Short-side exposure continues to dominate, with derivatives desks leaning against XRP and using every pop above $1.40–$1.45 to re-enter. At the same time, on-chain analytics such as the 30-day MVRV ratio point to mild undervaluation, and realized losses have exploded to levels last seen before a triple-digit rebound in 2022. That cocktail—heavy shorts, deep realized losses, depressed RSI and growing network usage—has the right ingredients for a squeeze, but timing is the problem. Without a catalyst, shorts can continue to press while spot drifts or grinds lower. Once a trigger arrives—policy, ETF decision, macro shift—positioning can reverse brutally. Until then, the tape remains a short-term trader’s market with no clear sponsorship from long-horizon capital.

Policy and Regulation: CLARITY Act Odds, ETF Decisions and SEC Overhang

Policy headlines are steering XRP more than fundamental adoption. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse is putting a roughly 90% probability on the CLARITY market-structure bill becoming law before the end of April, arguing the White House is pushing hard. Coinbase chief Brian Armstrong is signaling similar confidence about a “win-win-win” market-structure outcome. In parallel, the SEC’s process around the NYSE Arca listing for a T. Rowe Price Active Crypto ETF is moving forward, with initial comments due February 23 and rebuttals by March 9. XRP is explicitly named as a potential holding alongside BTC and ETH. If that fund launches with XRP inside, it adds another institutional channel on top of the current ETF suite; if the SEC drags the process or carves XRP out, that would undercut the current “regulatory clarity” narrative that price has been front-running. Stablecoin yield mechanics and safeguards inside the CLARITY debate add more noise, and none of this removes the core risk: XRP still sits much closer to the regulatory line than BTC, so every move from Washington has outsized impact on its risk premium.

Institutional Signals: SBI’s $65 Million XRP-Paying Bonds and Japan’s Tokenisation Push

Away from U.S. policy, concrete projects are forming around XRP. SBI Holdings is preparing roughly $65 million in on-chain bonds that pay holders semi-annual coupons of about 1.85%–2.45% plus XRP rewards of roughly $1.29 in XRP per ¥645 (≈$645) of principal, maturing in early 2029. The bonds will be issued via the ibet for Fin platform and require accounts at SBI VC Trade to receive the XRP component. This is not marketing noise; it is a regulated financial group embedding XRP into fixed-income product design after years of paying shareholders and even e-sports players in the token. It signals that in Japan’s tokenisation wave, XRP remains part of the toolkit. The scale—$65 million—won’t move a $1.39 market by itself, but it proves that real balance-sheet products are being built on top of the asset, not just speculative flows.

Macro Backdrop: Tariffs, PCE at 2.9% and Risk-Asset Sensitivity

Macro remains a key driver. U.S. equities closed higher after the Supreme Court struck down prior emergency tariffs, but Donald Trump immediately called for a fresh 10% tariff package. At the same time, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, PCE, printed a 0.4% monthly rise and 2.9% year-over-year, while Q4 GDP slowed to around 1.4% annualized. That mix—sticky inflation, weaker growth, tariff noise—keeps the rate-cut path uncertain. When markets price faster easing, speculative assets including XRP tend to catch a bid; when inflation looks stubborn and tariffs threaten growth, those same assets are the first to get sold. Right now, the backdrop is neither a clean risk-on nor a full risk-off: BTC is holding near $68k, ETH around $1,950–$1,990, while XRP underperforms and bleeds back gains. Macro is not killing the case for XRP, but it is not providing a strong tailwind either.

Market Narrative: ETF Fatigue, Regulatory Optionality and On-Chain Divergence

The current phase is defined by three conflicting narratives. First, ETF fatigue: after an explosive launch phase that lifted cumulative XRP ETF inflows to around $1.23 billion, flows have stalled, and several sessions have recorded zero activity. Second, regulatory optionality: CLARITY and the T. Rowe ETF decision create genuine upside if both break favorably, but also real downside if timelines stretch or language weakens XRP’s position. Third, on-chain divergence: a 40% jump in successful ledger transactions toward 2.5 million per day and high success rates show a network in expansion mode, not contraction. Price is currently anchored by derivatives and sentiment, not by these fundamentals. That gap can close either by fundamentals pulling price up, or by activity cooling if policy disappoints and capital never arrives.

Verdict on XRP Price: Hold Bias with Binary Catalyst Risk Around $1.35–$1.65

Short term, XRP trades in a compressed but dangerous band. Support is emerging around $1.35–$1.40 after the drop from $1.65+, while resistance builds in the mid-$1.50s and near last weekend’s spike zone. On-chain health, Japanese tokenised bonds and potential U.S. policy breakthroughs argue against aggressive capitulation calls here. At the same time, stalled ETF flows, dominance of short positioning, a 1.66 billion-XRP futures overhang and cautious macro signal that chasing upside inside this $1.39–$1.44 window is not attractive.
Current stance: Hold. The risk/reward skew improves materially either on a clean break above roughly $1.65 with ETF and policy confirmation, or on a deeper flush toward the low-$1.20s that resets positioning. Until one of those triggers appears, the combination of strong network metrics and weak capital flows justifies patience rather than aggressive accumulation or panic selling.

That's TradingNEWS