Right now, XRP traders keep going back to a certain number. neither a resistance level nor a price target. Just $1. It’s an almost embarrassingly simple round number, but in markets like this one, simple numbers have a way of becoming everything. As of this writing, XRP is trading between $1.08 and $1.11, down more than 20% over the previous month. Every cryptocurrency forum and trading desk is asking the same question: will it hold or fall through?
It helps to recall where XRP was a few weeks ago in order to comprehend why this is important. The price of Ripple’s native token fluctuated between $1.20 and $1.70 in September and October; it was high and comparatively stable, helped in part by real institutional momentum after seven spot XRP exchange-traded funds were introduced in late 2025. In the first month of trading, those ETFs raised $1.3 billion. That is a substantial amount. When the SEC case came to an end, institutional buyers who had been waiting years for regulatory clarity showed genuine appetite. For a while, it appeared as though XRP had entered a more stable phase.
The political math was then altered by the U.S. midterm elections. The market swiftly adjusted its expectations regarding crypto-friendly legislation after Democrats won both the Senate and the House. The Clarity Act, which was thought to be advantageous for digital asset frameworks and cross-border payment tokens, suddenly appeared to be much less likely to progress in its current form. Almost immediately, worries about a stricter SEC-led regulatory approach to tokens like XRP, which is involved in cross-border payments, began influencing price action. After a brief attempt to rebound above $1.30, XRP broke below the $1.20 support level by November 5 and continued to decline. Since then, it hasn’t recovered.
It’s worth considering the analogy to Bitcoin. Bitcoin has dropped by about 9% in the same month. The value of XRP has dropped by over 20%. It’s not a random gap. It illustrates how XRP’s thesis is more focused than Bitcoin’s more general store-of-value narrative, more closely linked to regulatory outcomes, institutional adoption of Ripple’s payment infrastructure, and enterprise use cases. XRP typically experiences the weakening of those particular tailwinds more quickly and intensely. Because of its smaller market capitalization—roughly $75 billion as opposed to Bitcoin’s $1.52 trillion—its fluctuations are more pronounced in both directions. The painful current drawdown is caused by the same dynamic that could enable XRP to perform significantly better in a recovery scenario.
The argument for XRP might not have changed all that much. Fast, inexpensive cross-border settlement that takes three to five seconds per transaction is still Ripple’s primary offering. Financial institutions around the world are still interested in tokenizing real-world assets. The ETFs are operational. The cloud over the SEC has lifted. These are not made-up talking points; they are actual things. However, it appears that the market has made the decision to price in the worst-case regulatory scenario first and then raise concerns. It’s actually unclear at this point whether that repricing is a reasonable adjustment or an overreaction.
It’s evident that the $1.00 floor exists. Analysts predict that XRP will find support at that psychological threshold and possibly consolidate between $1.00 and $1.38 for several quarters if Bitcoin stabilizes around $75,000. A test of August’s low near $0.98 is possible if Bitcoin breaks lower, and no one who owns XRP wants to have that conversation. It will be influenced by the U.S. inflation data this week. Observe the CPI figures. See how Bitcoin responds. The short-term result is likely determined more by that combination than by anything currently occurring within the XRP ecosystem.
