XRP (XRP +0.69%), the native cryptocurrency of the XRP Ledger, has lost more than 30% of its value over the past 12 months. Let's see why this volatile token has lost its luster and whether its price might drop to zero in a worst-case scenario over the next few years.
Why did XRP's price tumble?
The founders of Ripple, a provider of blockchain-based payment services, launched XRP in 2012 and primarily used it as a bridge currency for accelerating fiat transactions. However, Ripple also sold its own XRP tokens to fund its expansion, which triggered a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) probe and lawsuit in 2020.
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As a result, Ripple lost several of its top customers, and XRP was delisted from the top crypto exchanges. That lawsuit kept XRP's price below $1 for years.
In 2025, that lawsuit finally concluded with a lighter-than-expected fine. The top crypto exchanges relisted XRP, and the SEC approved XRP's first spot-price exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and Ripple's application for a bank charter (on a conditional basis).
CRYPTO: XRP
Key Data Points
All of those tailwinds drove XRP's price to a multi-year high of $3.65 last July. But looking ahead, XRP's future looks murkier. In late 2024, Ripple launched its own stablecoin, Ripple USD (RLUSD +0.02%), which could cannibalize XRP as a bridge currency on its platform.
Ripple USD and other stablecoins remain pegged to the U.S. dollar, making them much less volatile than XRP for bridge currency transactions. Meanwhile, XRP can't be valued by its scarcity in the same way as Bitcoin (BTC +0.94%), since Ripple's founders pre-minted its entire supply of 100 billion tokens on the XRP Ledger before its market debut. It also doesn't natively support smart contracts (used to develop decentralized apps and other crypto assets) like Ethereum (ETH +0.64%), so it can't be valued by the growth of its developer ecosystem.
Without any clear near-term catalysts, XRP's price collapsed as murky monetary policies, escalating geopolitical conflicts, and other macro headwinds chilled the crypto market. That pressure will persist as cautious investors stick with blue chip tokens like Bitcoin and Ether.
But could XRP's price go to zero?
XRP faces many existential challenges, but it probably won't sink to zero over the next few years. Even after the SEC sued Ripple and crypto exchanges delisted XRP, the token's price still traded largely between $0.30 and $0.50, rather than dropping into the single digits.
So even in a worst-case scenario, I think XRP's price will stay above zero. That said, I'd rather buy Bitcoin or Ether in this wobbly market than make a contrarian bet on XRP.
