Markets have a way of humbling people right after they start to feel clever. In mid-July, XRP (XRP 1.02%) was hitting seven-year highs of more than $3.60, and now, after months of decline, it's down to about $2.15.
Regardless of how much pain the past few months delivered, the question now is whether a combination of improving macroeconomic conditions (assuming it happens), improving technology on the XRP Ledger (XRPL), and Ripple's sales pipeline can realistically set the stage for this coin to make a comeback in 2026.
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This was a painful slide, but not a fatal one
Let's start by putting XRP's weak performance into context.
In short, the entire crypto market's value is down significantly during the past year, even after a strong start to 2025, which tells you that risk appetite has cooled broadly. Since the Oct. 10 crypto flash crash, the sector has suffered significantly from terrible sentiment, and widespread fears of a bear market continue to run rampant.
The macroeconomic backdrop has been unfriendly, but it's starting to change. Central banks spent most of 2024 and early 2025 tightening or holding their interest rates at restrictive levels, defying expectations that they would take the opposite approach, and only recently have they started to pivot toward easier financial conditions. Looser monetary policy and better liquidity should unfold during the coming year, which tends to support crypto valuations in general.
CRYPTO: XRP
Key Data Points
In that vein, if interest rates ease through 2026 and growth muddles along rather than collapsing, risk assets will get more breathing room, and capital that has been parked in cash will start to creep back toward higher-risk investments like crypto. There is no guarantee that XRP will be the prime beneficiary of these inflows, but it certainly is positioned to participate.
So in sum, XRP's decline so far looks mostly macro-driven, not like a collapse in its investment thesis. That's good news for investors, because it means that as long as Ripple continues to advance the coin's usage and improve its capabilities, XRP will in theory continue to have a higher intrinsic value in the future than in the past.
Real-world utility could pave the way for higher prices
XRP's odds of bouncing back in 2026 look fairly good because it's exposed to a steady drumbeat of tech upgrades and new avenues for users to be onboarded.
Ripple has applied for a U.S. national bank charter, which if granted would let it hold digital assets in custody, engage in lending, and potentially access Fed payment venues, signaling an intent to sit inside the regulated financial system rather than around it. There are already hundreds of financial institutions integrated with RippleNet or testing its services. That's key, as some of the flows in Ripple's payments and money transfer network use XRP directly as a bridge currency between fiat currencies, and every on-ledger transaction consumes a small amount of XRP as a fee, so higher network activity gradually increases aggregate demand.
The bigger picture is that buying XRP today is essentially a bet that the XRPL will secure a durable role as a platform for cross-border money movement, stablecoin transaction settlement, and perhaps even tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) during the next decade, and that markets will reward that position with a higher valuation on its network activity. What's more, if the brand new crop of spot XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or additional exchange-traded products gain traction in more markets, it would further broaden the base of long-term holders while also generating capital inflows to the network. And a 2026 rebound is entirely plausible under this scenario.
But that doesn't mean you should bet the farm on it or hold your breath. The crypto market is unlikely to behave precisely as investors prefer, and XRP is no exception. A smart playbook for now is to keep your position fairly small, and to purchase this coin gradually -- there could be plenty more volatility ahead, so stay focused on the long term and have a plan to survive until then.
