XRP gave up its post-midterm rally to $1.34 and now sits 67% below its $3.65 high | That's TradingNEWS
Key Points
- XRP fell 8.3% to $1.20, below its 200-day average of $1.27, and is down 49.3% over 12 months.
- Spot XRP ETFs logged zero net flows on November 3–5; inflows are $1.81B against $1.41B in assets.
- A close below $1.20 targets $1.10 and the $0.99 August low; reclaiming the $1.38 50-day average opens $1.57.
XRP fell 8.3% to $1.20 on Friday. Over the past 24 hours it traded between $1.33 and $1.20, and earlier in the week, after the midterm elections, it had reached $1.34. The token is now 5% below its 200-day moving average of $1.27, 10.4% below this week’s high, and 67% below its all-time high of $3.65 set on July 17, 2025. At $1.20, XRP is worth $76.1 billion and remains the fifth-largest cryptocurrency. It is down 18.1% over 30 days and 49.3% over 12 months.
The decline began on Wall Street. On Thursday, the Nasdaq Composite fell 5.52% to 24,315, entering correction territory, and the Philadelphia semiconductor index dropped more than 12%. Democrats had won both chambers of Congress, and investors feared tighter regulation of artificial intelligence and, later, of crypto. Bitcoin fell from above $80,000 on Thursday to $75,531 on Friday, down 6.1% in 24 hours. Ether lost 7.29% to $2,247.74. Crypto liquidations reached $1.25 billion in 24 hours, with $1.12 billion of that coming from leveraged long positions.
Our thesis is that Ripple’s growing list of institutional partnerships is not creating demand for the XRP token. Until it does, XRP will trade as a high-beta version of the broader crypto market, and the market is falling. On October 27, Ripple announced that BNY now custodies XRP and its RLUSD stablecoin for institutional clients, that Robinhood will bring RLUSD to its app, and that C2FO will settle trade finance on the XRP Ledger. US spot XRP exchange-traded funds recorded zero net flows on November 3, 4 and 5 regardless. Cumulative inflows since the funds launched in November 2025 have stalled at $1.81 billion, while assets under management are $1.41 billion. Holders who bought through the ETFs are sitting on paper losses.
The derivatives market makes the picture worse. On OKX, the long-to-short account ratio stood at 3.91 on Friday morning, close to the top of its 30-day range of 2.71 to 4.37. Most traders there are still positioned for a rebound, and the price is still falling. Open interest fell 8.9% overnight to $117.4 million as some of those positions were forced out. More remain.
Our base case through the December 9 Fed decision is a range of $1.05 to $1.35, with a midpoint of $1.20. A daily close below $1.20 would put the August 17 low of $0.99, 17.5% below the current price, back in play. A recovery needs a close above $1.27 to reclaim the 200-day average, and a sustained move needs a return to the 50-day average at $1.38, 15% higher. Without ETF inflows, the pressure on XRP is to the downside.
XRP started November in a fragile position. It had ended October with losses after failing to hold the September 23 high of $1.57, and through the first days of the month it held near $1.25, a level that had acted as support since August. On November 3, XRP traded at $1.25 even though 7,934 new wallets had been created, a sign that network activity was rising without lifting the price. On November 2, the spot XRP ETFs recorded $530,000 in redemptions.
The midterm results changed the mood for a day. As votes were counted on Tuesday and early Wednesday, crypto initially rallied on the view that a divided outcome would leave existing legislation in place. XRP rose to $1.34 early in the week and traded at $1.30 on November 4. On the same day, 418.5 million XRP, worth $540 million, left Binance. It was the exchange’s largest single-day XRP outflow in nine months. Coins leaving an exchange usually signal accumulation, since holders move tokens to private wallets they don’t plan to sell from.
The rally didn’t last. Once it became clear that Democrats had won both the House and the Senate, investors began pricing tighter oversight of AI and crypto. On Wednesday, Bitcoin fell 5.21% to $75,948.49 and the total crypto market capitalization fell 4.66% to $2.55 trillion. XRP dropped 5.70% to $1.22, tracking the market almost exactly. The crypto fear and greed index fell to 33, in fear territory.
Thursday brought a brief rebound and then the Wall Street rout. Bitcoin recovered above $80,000 on Thursday morning as part of an altcoin bounce. XRP held above its 200-day average of $1.27. The Nasdaq’s 5.52% fall that afternoon, the S&P 500’s 4.36% loss and the Dow’s 1,833-point drop then pulled crypto down overnight. Bitcoin ETFs recorded $430.2 million of outflows on November 5, their largest single-day outflow this month.
By Friday morning, XRP had fallen 8.3% in 24 hours to $1.20. It was the first time XRP had traded at this level since August 16 to 20, when daily prices were at $1.20 or below. Against Bitcoin, XRP was down 2.3% over 24 hours, 1.1% over seven days and 8.8% over 30 days. XRP is not only falling with the market; it is underperforming Bitcoin while it does.
The US spot XRP ETFs were supposed to provide steady institutional demand. Since their launch in November 2025, cumulative net inflows have reached $1.81 billion. Six spot funds now trade, and together they held 1.18 billion XRP worth $1.52 billion at the November 4 close. Including XRP held by a broader index fund, total ETF holdings were 1.20 billion XRP, or 1.20% of XRP’s fixed 100 billion supply.
The inflow numbers have stopped moving. The spot funds recorded zero net flows on November 3, November 4 and November 5, three straight sessions with no new money. On November 4, holdings across the funds fell by 64,826 XRP, worth $84,300 at that day’s price. Over November 2 to 4, holdings fell by 259,700 XRP. These are small numbers, but they point in the wrong direction. Roughly $14 million of ETF shares traded on November 3, so investors are still trading the funds. They just aren’t adding to them.
The gap between inflows and assets tells the more important story. With cumulative inflows of $1.81 billion and assets of $1.41 billion, ETF investors have lost $400 million in aggregate. Reconstructions of the funds’ cost bases put unrealized losses at $440 million. Investors who are underwater tend to sell into rallies to get back to break-even, which adds supply every time XRP recovers. At $1.41 billion, the ETFs hold 1.85% of XRP’s market capitalization, too little to set the price on their own and enough to weigh on it when they sell.
Other crypto ETFs did worse this week. Bitcoin, Ether and Solana ETFs all recorded outflows on November 5 as institutions cut crypto exposure along with equities. Solana ETFs lost $1.18 million that day, while funds tracking HBAR took in $278,241. Flat XRP flows look like a holding pattern rather than panic, but a holding pattern doesn’t lift a price that has just broken its 200-day average.
For the forecast, ETF flows are the most important signal. The bullish case for XRP in 2026 rested on institutional money flowing in through regulated products. That money has stopped arriving. One estimate suggests ETFs would need to absorb 200 million XRP a month just to offset new supply entering the market from Ripple’s escrow. They are currently absorbing nothing. Until daily flows turn positive, every rally is a chance for holders to sell.
Ripple’s business news has been strong. At its Swell 2026 conference in New York on October 27, Ripple announced three partnerships. BNY, which has held the reserves behind the RLUSD stablecoin since July 2025, now custodies XRP and RLUSD for eligible institutional clients on its Digital Asset Custody platform. BNY and Ripple are also working on a channel that would let BNY customers mint and redeem RLUSD without leaving the bank, and BNY plans to support more tokenized assets issued on the XRP Ledger.
The Robinhood deal expands RLUSD into retail finance. RLUSD already trades on Robinhood Chain and on Bitstamp by Robinhood, and a launch in the main Robinhood app is planned for later this year. The partnership also covers treasury management, lending and trading, including perpetual futures on Bitstamp financed through Ripple Prime, Ripple’s institutional brokerage. Separately, Ripple partnered with C2FO, a working-capital platform, to settle trade finance payments for its Instant Pay service on the XRP Ledger using RLUSD.
RLUSD has grown quickly. Launched in December 2024, it has reached a market capitalization of $2.57 billion, with nearly $1 billion issued on the XRP Ledger. The XRP Ledger has processed more than 4.6 billion transactions. In January 2026, BNY launched tokenized deposits, and Ripple Prime signed on as an early adopter. Ripple is building a network of banking, brokerage and custody relationships that few crypto companies can match.
The problem is the link between Ripple’s growth and the token’s price. RLUSD is a dollar-backed stablecoin, and its reserves are cash and Treasuries, not XRP. BNY custody of XRP makes the token easier for institutions to hold, but it does not force anyone to buy it. Tokenized trade finance on the XRP Ledger needs XRP only for transaction fees, which are fractions of a cent. Ripple’s institutional push makes the network more valuable, but the market has not decided how much of that value accrues to XRP itself.
The October 27 announcements came during a month in which XRP fell. The token is down 18.1% over 30 days even though Ripple announced some of its most significant partnerships yet. The XRP market has separated Ripple’s corporate success from the token’s investment case. Until XRP has a mechanism that ties RLUSD volumes or tokenized-asset activity to token demand, partnership headlines will produce short rallies at best.
The election result has changed the regulatory picture for crypto. Democrats will control both chambers of Congress when the new session begins on January 3, 2027. A senator who has criticized the industry is expected to chair the Senate Banking Committee, which oversees digital-asset legislation. House Democrats are considering a new crypto market structure bill that would add investor protections and give the Securities and Exchange Commission more oversight, drawing on provisions proposed earlier by the House Financial Services Committee’s senior Democrat.
The market structure legislation that the industry had hoped to pass would face substantial revisions under Democratic control. That legislation was meant to set clear boundaries between the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and define when a token is a security or a commodity. For XRP, which spent years in litigation with the SEC over that question, the details matter. A bill with more SEC authority would revive the uncertainty that had faded after the case ended.
Democrats also plan to investigate the Trump family’s business dealings, including its crypto ventures. Those investigations would keep crypto in the political spotlight through 2027. Hearings and subpoenas don’t change rules directly, but they make lawmakers less willing to pass industry-friendly legislation and can make institutions more cautious about expanding crypto exposure.
There is a counterargument. A divided government, with a Republican president and a Democratic Congress, limits how far either side can go. The administration can still direct federal agencies, and regulators appointed by the president will remain in place. The ETFs, BNY custody and Ripple’s other partnerships were all approved under the current framework, and Congress cannot easily undo them. The new Congress can slow progress but cannot reverse what has already been approved without the president’s signature.
For XRP, the regulatory shift removes a source of upside rather than adding a new threat. In the base case, the market had priced a clear federal framework in 2027 that would encourage banks to use XRP. That framework is now less likely and would arrive later. The token has lost the political tailwind that helped it in 2025, and the new Congress takes office in less than two months.
XRP has followed Bitcoin closely this week, but with larger swings. On Wednesday, Bitcoin fell 5.21% and XRP fell 5.70%. On Friday, Bitcoin was down 6.1% over 24 hours and XRP was down 8.3%. Over 30 days, XRP is down 8.8% against Bitcoin. In a falling market, XRP amplifies Bitcoin’s moves to the downside and does not keep pace when Bitcoin recovers.
Bitcoin is under pressure of its own. It fell to $75,200 on Friday, its lowest level since mid-September, after recovering above $80,000 on Thursday. The $430.2 million of Bitcoin ETF outflows on November 5 was the largest of the month. Leveraged long positions accounted for $1.12 billion of the $1.25 billion in liquidations over 24 hours, and $818.90 million of longs were liquidated in a single four-hour window. That is forced selling, and it hits altcoins harder because their order books are thinner.
The equity connection is now direct. Institutions are treating crypto as a risk asset to cut alongside technology stocks, not as a separate store of value. On Thursday, the Nasdaq fell 5.52%, the S&P 500 lost 4.36% and the Philadelphia semiconductor index dropped more than 12%. Crypto miners that had expanded into AI data centers fell sharply, and Coinbase and Strategy shares also dropped. When AI stocks fall, Bitcoin miners fall, Bitcoin falls, and XRP falls further.
The Federal Reserve adds pressure. Friday’s October jobs report showed payrolls rising by 165,000, more than double the consensus, and unemployment falling to 4.1%. Futures now price a 74.8% chance that the Fed will raise rates on December 9. The Fed raised rates to 3.75% to 4.00% in September, the first increase since 2023. Higher rates make holding non-yielding assets such as XRP more expensive and strengthen the dollar, which has risen as investors moved into cash.
For the forecast, XRP’s direction depends on Bitcoin’s. If Bitcoin holds $75,000 and recovers toward $80,000, XRP can retest its 200-day average at $1.27. If Bitcoin breaks below $75,000, XRP’s higher beta points to a test of $1.10 and then $0.99. Ripple-specific news can lift XRP for a day, but over the next six weeks, Bitcoin and the Nasdaq will set the trend.
The futures market shows traders still positioned for a rebound. On OKX, the long-to-short account ratio was 2.87 on Thursday morning, rose to 4.12 by midnight and stood at 3.91 on Friday morning. For every account betting on lower prices, nearly four are betting on higher prices. The 30-day range for the ratio is 2.71 to 4.37, so current positioning is near the most bullish level of the past month even as the price falls.
That imbalance creates a liquidation risk. When a crowd of leveraged longs faces falling prices, each forced sale pushes the price lower and triggers the next round of liquidations. At tenfold leverage, a move of less than 10% against a position is enough to wipe it out. XRP’s 24-hour range of $1.33 to $1.20 was a 9.8% move. Traders who bought with high leverage at the start of the week have already been liquidated, and more stop orders sit below $1.20.
Open interest is falling, which shows some of that leverage is being cleared. On OKX, open interest dropped from $128.9 million on Thursday midday to $117.4 million on Friday morning, a decline of 8.9%. Falling open interest during a price decline means positions are closing, not new shorts opening. That is a healthier form of selling than a wave of new bets against the token, because once leverage is cleared, the forced selling stops.
Funding rates show the speculative heat has cooled. Funding on OKX was 0.01% per eight hours six times in a row, from Tuesday afternoon to Thursday afternoon, the standard rate when longs and shorts are roughly balanced in cost. The most recent reading was 0.0024%. At the end of October, funding was negative, meaning shorts were paying longs. Funding has fallen back toward zero but has not turned negative, so the market has not yet reached the capitulation that usually marks a bottom.
For the forecast, derivatives positioning points to more downside before a durable low. A long-to-short ratio of 3.91 is too high for a market that has just broken its 200-day average. A sustainable bottom usually comes when the ratio falls toward the low end of its range, funding turns negative and open interest stops falling. None of those conditions has been met. The cleanup has started but is not finished, and the $1.10 to $0.99 zone is where the remaining leveraged longs would be forced out.
Read More
- Yen Stalls at 160 Despite a 3% JGB and Tokyo Core CPI at 2.0% — Intervention Sits at 164, Friday's Payrolls Decide 02.09.2026 · TradingNEWS Archive Energy
- Moderna Hits a $263.44 High After a $0.38 EPS Beat, but Guidance Implies Q4 Revenue Falls 14%–42% — $215–$280 Range Into Analyst Day 06.11.2026 · TradingNEWS Archive Stocks
- Ethereum ($2,230) Tests Its 200-Day Line After the Post-Election Rally Fails at $2,447 — $2,450 Rebound Target in Play 06.11.2026 · TradingNEWS Archive Crypto
- Brent ($97) Prices In an Iran Peace Deal That Has Not Been Signed as Tanker Attacks Persist — $90–$110 Range Into OPEC+’s November 29 Meeting 06.11.2026 · TradingNEWS Archive Commodities
- Nasdaq Chip Bounce Meets a 4.90% Yield, S&P 500 Edges Up, Dow Slides as NET Rips 20% 06.11.2026 · TradingNEWS Archive Markets
- GBPUSD Drops to 1.3356 as a Hiking Fed Outweighs the BoE’s 4% Rate and Its 4.9% Inflation Path — 1.3250–1.3500 Range Into December 06.11.2026 · TradingNEWS Archive Forex
The on-chain data sends a mixed message. On November 4, 418.5 million XRP left Binance in a single day, worth $540 million. It was the largest daily outflow from the exchange in nine months. Large withdrawals usually mean holders are moving tokens into cold storage or custody, reducing the supply available to sell. In a normal market, that would be bullish.
This week, the price fell anyway. XRP dropped 7.66% in 24 hours after the outflow, and the token is now 8% below its November 4 price of $1.30. Withdrawals from one exchange do not mean buying pressure across the market. The tokens may have moved to another venue, to an institutional custodian such as BNY’s new platform, or to an over-the-counter desk. Without matching inflows from ETFs or new buyers, exchange outflows alone cannot lift the price.
Wallet growth tells a similar story. On November 3, 7,934 new XRP wallets were created while the price held near $1.25. Larger holders have also been adding to their positions. Network activity has risen with Ripple’s partnerships, and nearly $1 billion of RLUSD now circulates on the XRP Ledger. But wallet growth and stablecoin activity don’t require holders to buy XRP in size, so they have not translated into price gains.
The XRP Ledger is also going through technical changes. On November 5, the ledger activated the fixCleanup3_4_0 amendment, closing a vulnerability in which accounts with certain token-burning permissions could mint tokens by mistake. A separate lending feature that had been expected to launch is on hold. Neither development moves the price much, but the delay to lending removes a source of potential demand from DeFi activity on the ledger.
The supply side remains the background pressure. Ripple releases XRP from escrow on a regular schedule and sells part of it to fund operations, an issue that has been debated publicly again this week. With ETFs absorbing nothing, that supply enters a market with no steady buyer. For the forecast, on-chain data shows a network that is growing but a token that does not capture that growth in its price. Exchange outflows provide some protection against a collapse, but they are not enough to reverse the trend.
XRP is trading at a critical support level. The $1.20 area was last seen from August 16 to 20, and it coincides with the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement near $1.21, a level from which XRP has bounced before. A daily close below $1.20 would confirm the break and open the way to $1.10, the top of the summer trading range, 8.3% below the current price.
Below $1.10, the major support is the August 17 low of $0.99, which is also the 12-month low. That is 17.5% below the current price. XRP spent most of the summer between $0.90 and $1.10 before a single week of short liquidations, renewed ETF inflows and broader crypto momentum lifted it 56%. A return to that range would erase the entire autumn rally. A break below $0.99 would take XRP to its lowest level since before the ETFs launched.
Resistance starts at the 200-day moving average of $1.27, 5.8% above the current price. XRP closed above that level on Thursday and lost it overnight. A daily close back above $1.27 would show the breakdown was a false signal driven by liquidations. Above that, the 100-day average sits at $1.31 and the 50-day average at $1.38. All three averages are above the current price, and the 50-day is above the 100-day, which is above the 200-day. That stack is a bearish alignment.
The key resistance for a trend change is $1.38. A daily close above the 50-day average, 15% above the current price, would turn the short-term trend higher and target the September 23 high of $1.57, 30.8% above today’s level. Reaching the all-time high of $3.65 would require a 204% gain from here, which is not a realistic near-term target.
Momentum is negative. The price is below all major moving averages, the moving averages are stacked in bearish order, and the 30-day decline is 18.1%. A short-term moving-average crossover against Bitcoin flashed a buy signal on November 5, but it reversed within a day. XRP is nearing oversold levels, which often produces a sharp relief bounce. In a downtrend, those bounces tend to stall at the first resistance, which is $1.27.
At $1.20 and a market capitalization of $76.1 billion, XRP has 63.4 billion tokens in circulation out of a fixed supply of 100 billion. The rest is held by Ripple, much of it in escrow that releases on a regular schedule. Ripple uses sales of released XRP to fund operations and its expanding product lineup. That creates a steady stream of supply that the market has to absorb before the price can rise.
The ETF holdings are small against that supply. The six spot funds hold 1.18 billion XRP, 1.86% of circulating supply. Over 12 months, they have added that amount. Escrow releases and Ripple’s sales over the same period have been several times larger. For ETF demand to offset new supply, the funds would need to absorb around 200 million XRP a month, roughly six months of the current total every year, and they are currently absorbing nothing.
XRP’s valuation rests on expectations about future use, not current cash flows. A $76.1 billion market value is far larger than RLUSD’s $2.57 billion market capitalization and the fee revenue the XRP Ledger generates. Investors are paying for the possibility that XRP becomes a bridge asset for cross-border settlement, a collateral asset for tokenized markets, or a reserve asset for institutions that adopt Ripple’s products. Each of those uses is plausible. None of them is happening at scale yet.
The 12-month decline of 49.3% shows how much of that premium has already come out. XRP traded at $3.65 in July 2025, when the end of the SEC case, the prospect of ETFs and a friendly administration combined to drive a speculative rally. Since then, the ETFs have launched, the case has ended, and Ripple has signed partnerships with BNY and Robinhood. The token has fallen 67% from its peak. The good news has been priced, and the price has fallen anyway.
For the forecast, valuation is not a reason to buy. A token that has fallen 67% from its peak looks cheap only against its own history. Against the demand it actually generates today, it is not. XRP needs a new source of demand, either resumed ETF inflows or a clear mechanism linking Ripple’s institutional business to token purchases, before the valuation can recover.
Five events will drive XRP over the next six weeks. The first is Tuesday’s US consumer price index. After the strong October jobs report, inflation data will decide whether the Fed raises rates on December 9. A hot core reading would lock in the hike, strengthen the dollar and push risk assets lower. A soft reading would lower the hike odds from 74.8% and give crypto room to recover.
The second is the Fed decision itself on December 9. A hike to 4.00% to 4.25% would be the second of the cycle. The Fed’s statement and projections will show whether policymakers expect more increases into 2027. Crypto has traded as a liquidity-sensitive asset all year, and a Fed that keeps tightening is a headwind for every token.
The third is daily ETF flow data. Three straight days of zero flows is a warning, not a trend. A return to daily inflows of $10 million or more would show institutional demand has resumed and would support a recovery toward $1.27. Sustained outflows, with investors redeeming to cut losses, would confirm the bear case and push XRP toward $0.99.
The fourth is Washington. Committee assignments for the new Congress will be confirmed in the coming weeks, and Democrats’ plans for crypto legislation will become clearer. A Senate Banking chair focused on investor protection and SEC authority would slow the market structure bill. Hearings on the Trump family’s crypto ventures would keep the sector in the political spotlight. None of these changes the rules before January 3, but they shape expectations.
The fifth is the equity market. Thursday’s 5.52% Nasdaq drop came on fears of AI regulation, and Friday’s rebound of around 400 points showed how quickly sentiment can change. If AI stocks keep falling, crypto miners, Bitcoin and altcoins will follow. If equities stabilize, the forced selling in crypto will slow. XRP has little ability to set its own direction in this environment, and these five events will decide whether $1.20 holds.
Our forecast covers the period to the Fed decision on December 9, with three scenarios.
The base case, at 50% probability, is a range of $1.05 to $1.35, with a midpoint of $1.20. In this scenario, Bitcoin trades between $72,000 and $82,000 as the equity market settles and the Fed hikes on December 9 as priced. ETF flows stay close to zero, with small inflows and outflows that cancel out. The long-to-short ratio falls back toward the bottom of its range as leveraged positions are cleared, and funding stays near zero. XRP tests the $1.10 area at least once, bounces toward the 200-day average at $1.27 and fails to hold above it.
The bearish case, at 30% probability, is a return to the August 17 low of $0.99, 17.5% below the current price. This would follow a hot US CPI print that pushes the December hike odds above 90%, a Bitcoin break below $75,000 toward $70,000, and a further fall in technology stocks. ETF holders would start redeeming to cut losses, and the crowded long positions on futures exchanges would be liquidated in a cascade. A daily close below $0.99 would take XRP back into the summer range of $0.90 to $1.10 and erase the autumn rally.
The bullish case, at 20% probability, is a recovery to the 50-day average at $1.38, 15% above the current price. This would need a soft US CPI number that lowers the December hike odds, a Bitcoin recovery above $80,000, and a return to daily ETF inflows. A concrete announcement linking Ripple’s institutional business to XRP demand, such as BNY or Robinhood clients using XRP for settlement rather than only custody, would add support. A close above $1.38 would open the September 23 high of $1.57.
From $1.20, the risk-reward is skewed lower. The bullish target is 15% away, the bearish target is 17.5% away, and the bearish scenario carries 10 percentage points more probability. The signals that will decide which scenario plays out, in order of importance, are Bitcoin’s hold of $75,000, daily XRP ETF flows, Tuesday’s CPI, the long-to-short ratio and funding rates on futures exchanges, and the Fed decision on December 9.
XRP at $1.20 has fallen 8.3% in 24 hours, broken below its 200-day moving average of $1.27, and given up the post-midterm rally to $1.34. It is down 18.1% over 30 days, 49.3% over 12 months and 67% from its July 2025 high of $3.65. The trigger was Wall Street: a 5.52% Nasdaq decline, a 12% drop in semiconductors and $1.25 billion of crypto liquidations, most of them leveraged longs. XRP fell more than Bitcoin and is down 8.8% against it over 30 days.
The deeper problem is demand. Ripple has announced some of its strongest partnerships to date: BNY custody of XRP and RLUSD, RLUSD on Robinhood, trade finance on the XRP Ledger, and a stablecoin that has reached $2.57 billion. None of it has brought buyers to the token. Spot XRP ETFs recorded zero net flows for three straight days, cumulative inflows are stuck at $1.81 billion against $1.41 billion in assets, and holders are sitting on $440 million of unrealized losses. Escrow releases add supply that no steady buyer is absorbing.
Positioning and politics add to the pressure. The OKX long-to-short ratio of 3.91 sits near the top of its 30-day range, so the market has not yet flushed out the traders betting on a rebound. Democrats’ control of Congress from January 3 makes a crypto-friendly market structure law less likely and brings more SEC oversight into view. A Fed priced at 74.8% for a December hike and a stronger dollar weigh on all risk assets.
Our call is bearish-neutral. We would sell rallies into $1.27 to $1.31, between the 200-day and 100-day averages, with a first target of $1.10, 8.3% below the current price, and an extended target of the $0.99 August low if Bitcoin breaks $75,000. A daily close above the 50-day average at $1.38 would invalidate the view and open $1.57. The base-case range into the December 9 Fed decision is $1.05 to $1.35. Until ETF inflows resume, the partnership news will not be enough to lift the price.


