XRP saw its price jump 21% over the last seven days and 13% over the last 24 hours, trading at $2.69 as of press time—just as the Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin launches on the network. XRP was launched by the co-founders of Ripple Labs in 2012, but the company has gone to great lengths to stress that it is not the issuer of the token. Still, crypto traders know there’s a link and tend to consider good news for Ripple Labs, like its new stablecoin being approved by New York regulators, as an indicator that the XRP price will go up.
Founder of Obchakevich Research Alex Obchakevich told Decrypt that “XRP has the largest growth over the past week among the top 10 cryptos” with its growth significantly overtaking Bitcoin’s 10% gain over the same timespan. “XRP has been consolidating in this bull flag for a while, but once it clears the $2.60 resistance, I think it’s off to the races, heading toward $4,” he added.
Over-the-counter trading desk principal at Wintermute, Jake Ostrovskis, told Decrypt that “XRP has benefited from being ‘known’ in retail circles, whilst bullishness around the new U.S. administration is leading traders to front-run a potential ETF [exchange traded fund] launch.” The comments follow a late November filing by New York asset manager WisdomTree, making it the latest firm to register its interest in launching an XRP spot ETF product.
Adam O’Neill, chief marketing officer at Bitrue exchange, told Decrypt that “with XRP ETFs also a likely event in 2025 we would anticipate a new all-time high for this coin by end of Q1 at the latest.” He also added that the platform expects “a boost in demand for XRP through 2025 because so many pieces are falling into place.” He highlighted how the firm’s battles against regulators “now appear to be a thing of the past” and XRP is “set to be a major beneficiary from Trump’s pro-crypto administration.”
O’Neill also pointed out that XRP is “receiving a wide amount of attention from both crypto-centric as well as traditional media for their 400% price increase in the last ~6 weeks.” Meanwhile, Ripple is set to launch its RLUSD stablecoin today, with some analysts believing that this is playing a role in driving market demand for XRP. Obchakevich said that the “launch of RLUSD will also play an important role, which will allow Ripple to consolidate its position in the market and continue its growth.”
“According to my forecasts, RLUSD will enter the top 100 cryptos in the first days with a market cap of more than $1 billion,” he added. O’Neill also pointed out that Ripple USD transactions “burn a small amount of XRP as a gas fee, which over time will increase XRP’s scarcity and translate to higher prices for the coin.” He believes that “the successes of these two assets are intertwined and investors have picked up on this connection.”
Edited by Stacy Elliott.