Things look a bit dicey right now for XRP (XRP +2.59%), the world's fourth largest cryptocurrency. It's down 25% for the year, and a startling 62% from its 52-week high of $3.65.
That being said, there's a case to be made that XRP is the best cryptocurrency to buy right now in 2026. Let's take a closer look.
XRP's upside potential
It all starts with XRP's future upside potential. Right now, XRP is trading around the $1.40 mark. By way of comparison, XRP looked like it was going to easily break through the $4 price level last summer. So if XRP is capable of getting back to where it was just 12 months ago, it could double or even triple in value.
Image source: Getty Images.
Just how likely is that? Well, a lot more likely than you might think. Currently, the Polymarket prediction market is giving XRP a 24% chance of doubling in value and hitting a price of $2.80 this year. In other words, XRP has a 1-in-4 chance of reclaiming its 52-week high by the end of the year.
And wait: It gets even better than that. That's because some analysts think that XRP could eventually hit a price target of almost $10 by the end of 2027. A new price forecast from Bitwise, a crypto investment firm, suggests that XRP could hit $6.53 this year, $9.60 next year, and $29.32 by 2030. All of this, of course, is based on soaring rates of institutional adoption for XRP.
Risk vs. reward
Just keep in mind: The flip side of reward is risk. And if you're thinking about investing in XRP, you're being asked to take on a lot of risk to get all that upside potential.
Just look at the five-year chart for XRP. For a long stretch of time, it did absolutely nothing. Then it suddenly spiked in value. Along the way, there has been plenty of volatility.
CRYPTO: XRP
Key Data Points
The good news is that XRP's volatility is likely to decrease over time. That's due in large part to the greater regulatory clarity around XRP and Ripple, the fintech company behind the XRP token. In 2025, Ripple finally settled its long-running SEC case, which alleged that XRP was a security and not a commodity.
Now that the SEC case is in the rearview mirror, it's opening up more opportunities for both Ripple and XRP. Case in point: At the end of 2025, new spot XRP ETFs began trading, opening the door to new institutional investor money flowing into XRP. Moreover, Ripple has been on a $2.7 billion acquisition spree, in order to boost the potential use cases for XRP.
Add it all up, and XRP might just be the best cryptocurrency to buy right now. At a current price of just $1.40, it could be the type of high-risk, high-reward cryptocurrency capable of turbocharging your portfolio returns in 2026.
