XRP started the year with renewed momentum. After a subdued Q4 in 2025, the token staged a sharp rebound, rallying 25% in the first week of 2026 from December lows near $1.77 to a January 6 high of $2.38. XRP trades at $2.07, still 43% below its July 2025 all-time high of $3.65.
The January surge marked one of XRP’s strongest short-term performances in recent years. Technically, the move reclaimed the $2.00 psychological level and briefly tested resistance near $2.40 before entering consolidation.
The major factor for this bullish rally was the US spot XRP ETFs. In just 50 trading days, these products saw $1.3 billion in net inflows, with 43 consecutive days of positive flows and zero outflows.
Total assets under management across seven XRP ETFs are now $1.5 billion, locking roughly 793 million XRP in custody.
This makes XRP the second-fastest crypto asset after Bitcoin to cross the $1 billion ETF inflow mark. If inflows average $300-$500 million per month, ETFs alone could remove 2-3 billion XRP from the liquid supply in 2026, materially tightening market conditions.
On-chain data support the institutional narrative: the XRP balances held by exchanges decreased from about 4 billion tokens at the beginning of 2025 to about 1.7 billion at the end of the year, an annual decline of 57%.
While Ripple’s monthly escrow releases remain a factor, most unlocked tokens have been rapidly re-escrowed, limiting net new supply.
The exchange float that is shrinking implies that the demand is incremental and can have a strong price impact, especially during periods when the market is riskier.
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A move to $4 in 2026 is possible, but conditional. Three catalysts stand out:
Institutional Credibility Shock - A high-profile ETF filing or endorsement from a major asset manager could accelerate flows.
RLUSD Scaling Banking Rails - If Ripple’s stablecoin gains real traction in settlement and collateral workflows, it increases XRP Ledger usage by default.
Macro Tailwinds - Markets are pricing 3-4 US Federal Reserve rate cuts, which historically boost appetite for large-cap altcoins.
Standard Chartered has made an optimistic projection on XRP that it will reach $8 by the year 2026. The bank's Global Head of Digital Assets Research, Geoffrey Kendrick, backs this argument on the presumption that XRP will capture the cross-border payment market and also on the fact that the regulated investment products will keep the institutional inflows sustained.
He forecasts a $5.50 price for 2025, an $8.00 price for 2026, and a $12.50 price for 2028.