Will XRP go back up? That question is, right now, on the mind of pretty much every XRP holder. At the time of writing, the token trades around $1.42 to $1.45 — down roughly 60% from the $3.65 record it hit back in July 2025. A combination of broad crypto market weakness and some XRP-specific structural problems drove that drop, and the two are not always easy to separate. On the other side of the argument, though, a number of analysts still point to $10 or higher before 2026 closes — and the 12-month forecast models land somewhere in between.
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XRP Price Forecast 2026, Drop Reasons And Recovery Outlook
Why XRP Dropped — and What Is Still Weighing on It
The reasons behind the XRP price drop go beyond just a rough macro environment. Banks that use Ripple Payments do not actually have to use XRP — the network also runs on fiat currencies, which means Ripple adoption does not automatically pull the token’s price higher. Ripple’s own stablecoin, RLUSD, adds another layer of uncertainty, since it functions as a bridge currency on the same ledger and could chip away at direct XRP demand over time. XRP-based fees still apply when RLUSD moves through the network, so there is some indirect support, but it does not replace core utility. On top of that, Ripple still holds around 38 billion of the 100 billion total supply — a centralized structure that ties the token’s fortunes closely to the company’s own performance.
The $10 Call and What the Bullish Camp Says
Crypto trader Riz (@RizXRP) has spent several months tracking analyst commentary across the market and built a case around the sheer consistency of what he found. On April 21, 2026, he posted publicly that XRP would reach $10 by summertime. He had this to say:
“Every single day, we’ve heard generally the same thing from millions of different analysts. All aiming the exact same way.”
He also added: “By the time we get to summer, we should see much higher prices.” Getting from $1.45 to $10 requires a move of roughly 590% — a big ask, even in a strong crypto cycle, and the XRP price forecast for 2026 from institutional desks runs considerably more conservative.
Standard Chartered analyst Geoffrey Kendrick — one of the most closely followed institutional voices on XRP — started the year with an $8 target for 2026. After the February selloff pushed the token toward $1.16, he revised that number down significantly. Kendrick stated:
“The path to recovery depends on macro conditions improving rather than any new XRP-specific developments.”
His revised 2026 target now sits at $2.80, with $7 for 2027 and $12.60 for 2028 still on his roadmap. That is a grounded call — and also one that still implies roughly 93% upside from where XRP trades right now.
XRP Price Prediction 12 Months Out — What the Models Show
Model-based forecasts place XRP in a range of $1.37 to $2.20 across 2026, with an average annualized price around $1.67. As CoinCodex reveals, September and October stand out as the strongest months for XRP, with potential gains of around 48% and 55% respectively from current levels. That modest recovery scenario also lines up reasonably well with Kendrick’s $2.80 call, at least directionally.
The on-chain data also gives the bulls something to work with right now. Large wallets accumulated around 360 million XRP last week at a pace the market had not seen in ten months, and XRP ETFs pulled in $55.39 million over seven straight days — the strongest inflow week of 2026. Whales and ETF buyers rarely converge on the same price level at the same time, and that convergence points toward real conviction, not just short-term noise.
Will XRP go back up to $10 before summer? That XRP price target remains a stretch from where things stand today. A recovery toward the $2 to $3 range, though — more in line with the 12-month XRP price prediction from institutional forecasters — looks a lot more grounded in what the data actually shows right now.
