As of October 2023, the xrp price usd was around $0.50. A 100% increase is required to cross the $1 mark in the year. This is constrained by a number of variables. Regulatory, the SEC v. Ripple case in the US (case No. 20-CV-10832) remains a key driving force – in July 2023, a New York court ruled that XRP’s “programmatic sale” is not a security, causing its price to jump 75% in a day to $0.82 (Data source:) CoinMarketCap), but if the SEC appeal at the pivotal hearing in November succeeds, xrp price usd can fall back to the support level of $0.35 (the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level). Elliot Stein, an analyst at Bloomberg, believes that odds of a settlement of the case in full stands at 35%. If the case is to be settled in full, its price will more likely than not test the zone of $0.90-$1.20.
Technical analysis indicates that the short-term momentum has increased power. Daily RSI of the xrp price usd gained from 42 in September up to 58 (data platform: TradingView), having exceeded the neutral boundary. The October MACD bar chart produced the first “golden cross” of 2023, which sent a buy signal. The derivatives market is heating up. Based on the Deribit Exchange data, the open interest of December-dated call options with an exercise price of $1 accounts for 23%, which has a bet value of more than $27 million. But if price fails to break above $0.55 (September high), the approximately $120 million short position can trigger a short run. (Source of data:) CoinGlass.
On-chain data indicate capital games’ behavior. Santiment monitoring shows the 1 to 10 million XRP addresses count increasing by 12% in October. These “whales” possess 38% of circulation, and they directly determine short-term volatilities through their actions. The current market capitalization of XRP in circulation is 27.8 billion US dollars. If the price goes up to 1 US dollar, another 26 billion US dollars of money will need to flow in. However, the market liquidity has dropped by 80% compared to that of 2021 (average daily trading volume of 1.8 billion US dollars vs. 9 billion US dollars), forming a tremendous bottleneck. IntoTheBlock model places the selling pressure on xrp price usd from 68% of the token holders at $1 level with potential selling volume of 19 billion and accounting for 35% of circulating supply.
Ecological developments provide little help. Ripple’s ODL cross-border payment platform collaborated with France’s Lemonway and Japan’s SBI Remit in 2023, which contributed to a 40% year-over-year growth in transaction volume. But at the XRP chain, there were just 250,000 addresses per day that were active, less than 21% of Solana’s (1.2 million), and ecosystem activity was difficult to keep up with the need for a valuation surge. Bloomberg reported that if Ripple releases its IPO prior to 2024, it will translate into a 20% premium, but the likelihood of doing so within the year is below 15% and it must obtain SEC approval (it was talking about the 11-month review period when Coinbase went public).
The comparative analysis indicates towards the competitive stress. As of 2023, the xrp price usd has gone up by a total of 55%, significantly lagging Solana (+210%) and Polygon (+75%), with a large capital diversion effect. The Fear and Greed Index cryptocurrency (45 in October) is in a neutral condition. XRP needs to breach $0.60 (June high) to induce FOMO buying. Messari quantitative model predicts that under the combined favorable catalysts of approval of Bitcoin spot ETF (probability 50%) and settlement by SEC (probability 35%), the likelihood of XRP reaching $1 is 18%. To support such a price level, though, the volume in daily trade will have to be more than $5 billion (currently 1.8 billion), or 2.8 times greater than the overall market liquidity at current levels.
The risk factor requires prudence against black swan events. The 10-year US Treasury note yield rose to 4.8% (its highest since 2007), suppressing the price of risky assets. In case of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates again this year, the market capitalization of the crypto universe can decline by 15%-20%, bringing the xrp price usd down below $0.40 once again. Furthermore, Chainalysis data show that the centralization degree of XRP is relatively high, as the top 10 addresses hold 45% of the circulating supply. Big whale selling can trigger a spiral decline – for instance, in May 2021, a specific whale sold 120 million XRP to the exchange in one day, causing the price to fall by 22% in 24 hours.
Objectively, in order to break through $1, xrp price usd must fulfill three general conditions simultaneously: a total victory in the SEC case, breaking through $35,000 of Bitcoin to generate market beta returns, and a breakthrough partner announced by Ripple. Investors can utilize the zone of $0.48- $0.55 to open positions in lots. Stop-loss is set at $0.42 (200-day moving average). If the regulatory benefits are embraced, the short-term target is $0.75. If the November hearing goes badly, the risk of falling back to $0.30 has to be averted.