Is Ripple (XRP) Going To $0?

XRP has fallen more than 30% over the past 12 months despite a 2025 legal win, exchange relistings, and approval of its first spot ETFs, after reaching a multi-year high of $3.65 last July. The article argues the token now faces weaker near-term catalysts and existential risks from Ripple USD, which could cannibalize XRP's use as a bridge currency. Even so, the author считает XRP is unlikely to go to zero and would prefer Bitcoin or Ether in the current risk-off crypto backdrop.

Analysis

The market is treating XRP less like a payments asset and more like a policy beta that just lost its main catalyst stack. The cleaner read is that the asset’s upside was largely a function of legal overhang removal and exchange re-admission; once that repricing completed, there was no durable fundamental cash-flow anchor to justify a premium multiple versus the major crypto benchmarks. That makes XRP vulnerable to mean reversion whenever crypto risk appetite fades, because there is no embedded staking yield, developer flywheel, or scarcity narrative to mechanically absorb flows.

A more important second-order effect is competitive displacement inside Ripple’s own ecosystem. If the issuer is pushing a dollar-linked rail, it reduces the need for a volatile intermediary in precisely the use case XRP was supposed to own, which means the token can become an increasingly redundant tradable representation of the platform rather than the platform’s utility token. That is structurally bearish for long-duration holders: the base case shifts from “network adoption compounds token demand” to “platform adoption decouples from token demand.”

The bear case is not zero, but a slow bleed lower as liquidity rotates into higher-conviction crypto exposures and speculative capital becomes more selective. The catalyst path back up is narrow: a renewed broad crypto rally, a fresh regulatory surprise, or evidence that XRP actually captures settlement volume that cannot be replicated by stablecoins. Absent that, the next 3-6 months likely favor relative underperformance rather than absolute collapse.

Contrarian view: the market may be overstating the terminal downside because legacy holders and retail flow create a persistent bid that makes true zero difficult. That said, persistence of a floor is not the same as investability; the more relevant trade is that XRP can stay alive while still being a structural loser versus BTC/ETH over the next cycle.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Avoid initiating fresh long XRP exposure here; if holding legacy spot, treat rallies into liquidity as exit opportunities over the next 1-3 months.
• Pair trade: long BTC or ETH / short XRP on a 2-4 month horizon to express relative-quality rotation; target 15-25% downside relative spread if risk appetite degrades.
• If options liquidity is available, buy 3-6 month put spreads on XRP rather than outright puts to limit decay while expressing a drift-lower thesis; risk/reward favors defined downside.
• Watch for any confirmation of stablecoin volume migration away from XRP settlement rails; if RLUSD adoption grows, add to the short or trim any residual long exposure immediately.
• For crypto allocators, rotate marginal capital into BTC/ETH rather than chasing XRP rebounds; the opportunity cost of holding a non-yielding, non-cash-flowing asset is likely to remain high.