If you’ve spent any time on crypto Twitter lately, you’ve probably seen the "moon" charts. You know the ones—the vertical lines pointing toward $10, $50, or even $589 because of some cryptic Simpson’s episode. It's wild out there. But if we’re being honest, 2025 has been a weirdly grounded year for XRP. We finally got the one thing everyone was screaming for: clarity.
The SEC lawsuit? Done. The appeal? Withdrawn. We’re sitting in early 2026 now, looking back at a year that didn't necessarily explode the way the "diamond hands" crowd wanted, but it changed the math forever.
What Really Happened With XRP in 2025
The big headline was the settlement. In May 2025, Ripple finally put the pen to paper on a $50 million settlement with the SEC. It was a massive discount from the $125 million the regulators originally wanted and a universe away from the billions they threatened years ago. More importantly, it confirmed that when you or I buy XRP on an exchange, it’s not a security.
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That single piece of paper acted like a green light for Wall Street.
By September 2025, we saw the first spot XRP ETFs hit the U.S. market. It felt like a dam breaking. Suddenly, companies like Franklin Templeton and Grayscale were vacuuming up tokens to back their funds. For the first time in seven years, XRP actually hit a new high, peaking around $3.65 in July.
It didn't stay there, though.
Crypto is famous for the "sell the news" dump. After that July peak, the price slid back, grinding through a correction that saw it lose nearly 40% of its value by the end of the year. People were frustrated. They expected $10 and got a reality check instead. But looking at the cold hard data, the floor has moved up. We aren't talking about 30-cent XRP anymore.
XRP Price Prediction 2025: The Institutional Reality
When we talk about what XRP was worth in 2025, we have to look at the "liquidity crunch" that started to form.
Think about this: exchange reserves for XRP dropped from 4 billion tokens in early 2025 to just about 1.6 billion by December. That's a huge chunk of supply just... gone. Most of it moved into the custody of those new ETFs. When supply goes down and institutional demand stays steady, you get a "grind" rather than a "pump."
- The Bull Case: Analysts from Standard Chartered were calling for a move toward $8. They based this on the idea that XRP isn't just a "coin" anymore; it's bridge infrastructure.
- The Bear Case: Technical analysts pointed to a "death cross" late in the year, suggesting a dip back toward $1.25 before any real recovery could happen in 2026.
- The Middle Ground: Most of the year, XRP lived in a messy, volatile range between $1.80 and $2.80.
One thing that kinda caught people off guard was RLUSD. That’s Ripple's stablecoin. Some worried it would replace XRP, but it actually did the opposite. It gave banks a stable "on-ramp" to use the XRP Ledger without the heart-attack-inducing volatility of the token itself. Basically, it made the network more usable, which is what actually drives value long-term.
Why the $100 Dream is Still a Dream
Can XRP hit $100? Honestly, the math is tough. At $100, XRP would have a market cap that rivals some of the biggest countries' GDPs. In 2025, we learned that XRP grows when it’s used for settlement, not just when people hope it goes up.
The real "expert" view right now is that XRP is behaving more like a financial utility. It's less about the "meme" and more about the "plumbing." When BNY Mellon started looking at tokenized deposits on the ledger, that was a bigger deal than any celebrity tweet.
Is the Four-Year Cycle Dead?
For a decade, everyone followed the same rule: Bitcoin halves, everything moons, then everything crashes. 2025 might have broken that. Grayscale research suggests we’re entering the "Institutional Era."
Instead of retail investors chasing pumps, we have pension funds and sovereign wealth funds doing "due diligence" for six months before buying a single token. This makes the price moves slower, but way more solid. XRP didn't "moon" to $50 in 2025 because institutions don't buy into vertical lines. They buy into value.
Actionable Insights for the Path Ahead
If you’re holding or looking to get back in, stop watching the one-minute charts. It'll drive you crazy. Here is the actual landscape as we move deeper into 2026:
- Watch the ETF Inflows: If the cumulative net inflows stay above $1.2 billion, the "floor" for XRP is likely safe. If we see massive outflows two weeks in a row, the $1.25 bear target becomes a real possibility.
- Monitor the CLARITY Act: There's a bill moving through the U.S. Senate right now. If it passes, it clarifies how banks can hold digital assets. This is the "final boss" for XRP adoption.
- Check the EVM Sidechain: If developers actually start building apps on the XRP Ledger's new Ethereum-compatible sidechain, you'll see "Total Value Locked" (TVL) go up. Right now, it's low—under $50,000. That needs to hit millions before the "utility" argument carries real weight.
XRP in 2025 proved it could survive the worst the legal system had to throw at it. It didn't make everyone a millionaire overnight, but it secured its spot as one of the only "regulated" assets in the space. That's a boring win, but in finance, boring is usually where the big money hides.