The XRP price is back at a level that immediately gets my attention.
Not because $1 is some magical number, but because my history with XRP goes back more than a decade.
I first bought XRP in 2015, when it was still trading for fractions of a cent. I don’t remember the exact amount I invested anymore. It was probably somewhere below $1,000 and, at the time, just another speculative crypto position.
What attracted me was the story.
Ripple was already showing recognizable financial names around its ecosystem, including banks such as Santander. The idea that blockchain technology could eventually compete with, or at least improve upon, the old SWIFT-based international payment system sounded interesting to me.
A couple of years later, that small XRP position had turned into roughly a 100x return.
I sold during the XRP rally in May 2017. I didn’t catch the top — not even close. In fact, XRP would go much higher later that year.
But I did sell while surfing on a beach in Sri Lanka.
Crypto was a little different back then.
Almost a decade later, I’m watching XRP test the $1 level again. This time, however, the story surrounding the token is very different.
XRP now has institutional investment products, Ripple has expanded internationally, and the regulatory environment is much clearer than it was during the SEC lawsuit years.
Yet the XRP price keeps falling.
So what is going on?
XRP Price Falls Toward $1
XRP dropped more than 3% on Tuesday and briefly traded around $1, putting the token at a new 2026 low.
The decline extends what has already been a painful year for XRP holders.
Depending on which January reference point is used, XRP has lost around 60% or more from its early-2026 highs. The token’s market capitalization has fallen to roughly $63 billion, pushing XRP further down the ranking of the world’s largest cryptocurrencies.
The $1 level now matters for a simple reason: psychology.
Round numbers tend to attract attention from traders. When an asset that previously traded well above $2 approaches $1, buyers may see an opportunity while existing holders start wondering whether they should cut their losses.
That creates a battleground.
A convincing break below $1 could open the door toward the $0.95 region and potentially lower support levels. Holding $1, on the other hand, could give buyers something to build on.
XRP Trading Liquidity Is Getting Thin
Price isn’t the only concern.
Liquidity around XRP has reportedly weakened considerably on major exchanges.
One market analyst highlighted that 24-hour XRP trading volume on Binance had fallen to around $68 million, compared with periods when volume exceeded $1 billion.
Thin order books matter because less capital is required to move the market.
When liquidity is deep, large buy or sell orders can be absorbed without dramatically moving the price. When liquidity disappears, relatively modest selling can push XRP through important support levels.
That becomes particularly dangerous around $1.
If leveraged traders pile into long positions because they believe $1 must be the bottom, another quick move downward could trigger liquidations and create additional forced selling.
XRP Open Interest Is Rising
Interestingly, traders aren’t walking away from XRP completely.
XRP futures open interest has climbed sharply, with active contracts reportedly reaching the equivalent of approximately 2.72 billion XRP — the highest level since October.
Open interest measures the amount of outstanding derivatives positions that haven’t yet been closed.
Rising open interest isn’t automatically bullish.
It simply means more traders are taking positions.
Current market data also shows negative cumulative volume delta, or CVD. In simple terms, aggressive sellers have recently been more active than aggressive buyers.
Funding rates remain slightly positive, however, suggesting traders haven’t completely abandoned the idea of an XRP rebound.
That combination can create volatility.
XRP ETF Inflows Have Collapsed
Perhaps the more surprising development is happening in the ETF market.
Seven U.S. spot XRP ETFs reportedly manage around $1 billion in assets and have attracted approximately $1.5 billion in cumulative net inflows since launching.
Recently, however, demand has slowed dramatically.
Weekly XRP ETF inflows have fallen from approximately $14.86 million to only $1.01 million — a decline of roughly 93%.
That’s a major change in momentum.
Earlier this year, XRP ETFs were regularly attracting tens of millions of dollars during stronger weeks. Those inflows created another source of demand for XRP.
At around $1 million per week, that buying pressure becomes much less meaningful.
The ETFs haven’t disappeared, and institutional interest hasn’t vanished. For example, Wolverine Asset Management recently disclosed a position in the Bitwise XRP ETF.
But XRP probably needs ETF demand to accelerate again if institutional flows are going to become a meaningful bullish catalyst.
Whales Are Still Buying XRP
There is at least one interesting counterpoint to the bearish price action.
Large XRP holders appear to still be accumulating.
Recent estimates suggest whales have been purchasing more than 10 million XRP per day despite the falling price.
That’s worth watching.
Whale accumulation doesn’t guarantee that a bottom has formed. Large investors can be early just like everyone else.
Still, sustained accumulation while retail sentiment deteriorates can sometimes indicate that larger holders see value at current prices.
For now, it’s one of the few clearly positive signals underneath XRP’s weak chart.
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Could the CLARITY Act Help XRP?
Regulation remains another potential catalyst.
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, better known as the CLARITY Act, is designed to create a clearer regulatory structure for digital assets in the United States.
Among other things, the legislation attempts to establish clearer responsibilities between the SEC and CFTC when regulating different parts of the crypto market.
That’s relevant across crypto, but especially interesting for XRP.
Ripple spent years fighting the SEC over XRP’s regulatory status. Although that particular battle is behind the company, the United States still lacks a comprehensive framework covering the entire digital asset industry.
More regulatory certainty could encourage exchanges, financial institutions and asset managers to become more comfortable building products around cryptocurrencies.
For XRP, that’s potentially another piece of the institutional adoption puzzle.
What About Ripple’s RLUSD Stablecoin?
There’s also RLUSD.
Ripple’s stablecoin has grown quickly, reaching a reported market capitalization of approximately $1.6 billion.
At first glance, you might expect that growth to automatically benefit XRP.
It isn’t quite that simple.
People using RLUSD don’t necessarily need XRP for every transaction. A significant amount of RLUSD activity can also happen outside the XRP Ledger.
That means RLUSD adoption and XRP demand aren’t directly connected one-for-one.
The more interesting scenario would be increasing RLUSD activity directly on the XRP Ledger, particularly if XRP becomes more frequently used as a bridge asset between currencies and markets.
If that happens, Ripple’s stablecoin growth could create more tangible demand for XRP itself.
Until then, RLUSD’s success should not automatically be interpreted as XRP price appreciation.
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Tomorrow’s CPI Report Could Move the XRP Price
There’s also a much bigger market event coming tomorrow.
The United States releases its July Consumer Price Index on August 12 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
CPI measures changes in consumer prices and remains one of the most closely watched inflation indicators in financial markets.
Why should XRP holders care about U.S. inflation?
Because crypto doesn’t trade in isolation anymore.
A hotter-than-expected inflation reading can affect expectations for Federal Reserve monetary policy, bond yields and risk appetite across global markets. Bitcoin usually reacts first, but large altcoins such as XRP often experience even larger percentage moves.
A softer inflation print could give crypto some breathing room.
A negative surprise could make XRP’s battle around $1 considerably more interesting.
With liquidity already thin and derivatives positioning increasing, tomorrow could become an important volatility event.
What Does XRP Need to Recover?
There probably isn’t one single catalyst capable of fixing XRP’s current downtrend.
Instead, several things would help.
Institutional demand needs to improve, particularly through the U.S. XRP ETFs. Regulatory progress could give larger financial players more confidence to participate in the market.
Greater XRP Ledger activity would also strengthen the fundamental case, especially if the growth of RLUSD and Ripple’s broader payment infrastructure eventually translates into additional XRP usage.
Then there is the market itself.
Even excellent project-specific news struggles to push an altcoin higher when Bitcoin and the broader crypto market are risk-off.
For now, $1 is the level everyone is watching.
XRP Price: Can $1 Hold?
I’ve watched XRP go through several completely different eras.
When I bought it in 2015, there were no XRP ETFs. Crypto regulation barely existed, and putting bank logos on a crypto website was enough to make someone like me think: Okay, this might actually go somewhere.
That little speculative position eventually did roughly 100x.
I sold it in May 2017 from Sri Lanka while spending my days surfing. At the time, locking in that kind of return seemed like the obvious thing to do.
Of course, XRP kept pumping afterward.
That’s crypto.
Today, XRP is a far more established asset than the one I bought for fractions of a cent. Ripple has spent years building infrastructure, regulated investment products now exist, and institutional investors can gain XRP exposure without ever opening a crypto exchange account.
Yet none of that guarantees the price goes up.
Right now, the XRP price is telling us that sellers remain in control.
ETF inflows have slowed, liquidity looks fragile, and $1 is under pressure. Whale accumulation, regulatory progress and Ripple’s expanding ecosystem provide reasons for longer-term holders to keep watching.
Tomorrow’s CPI report adds another wildcard.
After watching XRP for more than a decade, I’ve learned one thing: never assume you know where the XRP story ends.
I certainly didn’t when I hit sell from a beach in Sri Lanka in 2017.
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