XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) peaked at $3.65 in July 2025 buty now trades 70% off its highs.

The collapse happened all the while Ripple kept signing institutional deals, winning regulatory battles, and attracting ETF inflows.

The Trump Rally Was Always Going To End This Way

XRP surged from $0.49 to $3.39 in weeks after Trump’s election as investors priced in a regulatory reversal. 

Every subsequent positive event followed the same script: buyers positioned early, price pumped, sellers cashed out the moment confirmation arrived. 

On January 20, 2025, XRP briefly spiked as Trump took office then fell the same day, starting a three-month decline to $1.60.

The people who bought XRP at $0.30 to $0.80 and held through years of SEC litigation finally had their exit. 

Three Macro Shocks Hit In Sequence

October 2025’s China tariff announcement wiped $19 billion in leveraged crypto positions in a single day, destroying the derivatives foundation that had amplified every previous XRP rally. 

February’s Black Sunday II then produced $2.2 billion in futures liquidations, wiping out 335,000 traders and breaking XRP below $1.60, the support level that had held since April 2025, opening a clear drop toward $1. 

US-Israel strikes on Iran later liquidated $100 million in crypto longs within 15 minutes, with XRP absorbing a disproportionate share given its elevated sensitivity to risk sentiment.

Deutsche Bank had integrated Ripple’s payment rails that same month. Aviva Investors had partnered with Ripple to tokenize funds on XRPL. 

Société Générale launched its euro stablecoin on XRPL the same week. None of it mattered. XRP was trading on macro fear, not Ripple fundamentals.

ETF Inflows Were Real But Couldn’t Absorb What Whales Were Dumping

The first US spot XRP ETF launched in November 2025, hit $1 billion in AUM faster than any crypto ETF since Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), and cumulative inflows now sit near $1.48 billion. 

Still, institutional buying through ETFs couldn’t match what early holders were offloading into every spike. 

The Ripple-Open USD partnership is the clearest example of the structural problem: Open USD is run independently, governed by 140-plus partners including Visa (NYSE:V), Mastercard (NYSE:MA), and BlackRock (NYSE:BLK), with XRP Ledger as just one of several potential chains. 

However, Ripple’s name on a deal doesn’t automatically create demand for XRP.

Where XRP Stands Now

XRP is challenging the year-long descending trendline from July 2025’s peak, the same line that rejected every rally for eleven months. 

The token prints its third RSI bull divergence signal at these lows. The prior two, in November 2025 and February 2026, each produced rallies of 40% to 80%.

The SEC and CFTC have classified XRP as a commodity, ETFs hold over $1 billion in assets, and Mastercard, Deutsche Bank, and Société Générale now actively use XRPL infrastructure. 

Ripple’s fundamentals never broke down — the price drop was driven entirely by macro forces, early holder distribution, and Bitcoin’s (CRYPTO: BTC) gravitational pull on the entire altcoin market.

Image: Shutterstock