As XRP attempts to climb to higher levels, an analyst affirmed that the altcoin is “doing what it needs to do” to continue its bullish rally, highlighting multiple key structures in key timeframes.

XRP Enters Inflection Point

After retesting the $1.90 area on Friday morning, XRP saw a 4.6% intraday bounce toward the mid-zone of its local range. Over the past five days, the cryptocurrency has been hovering in the $1.85-$2.00 price range, failing to hold the upper zone of this range.

Market watcher ChartNerd pointed out a key reversal pattern that could signal a massive price expansion may be around the corner, noting that the altcoin is at a “critical inflection point” as it retests a macro support zone.

He explained that a running flat ABC correction formation is “a sophisticated structure where the failure of the ‘C’ wave to breach previous lows signals underlying bullish strength.”

XRP has been mirroring the same structure over the past 400 days, which would point “toward a structural breakout, marking the transition from a yearly long base into a new primary uptrend” if it resolves.

As the chart shows, “the wave counts repeating toward the structure are evident in XRP’s price action,” and as long as the macro support holds, around the $1.80 area, the C wave “could be working in the bulls’ defense.”

We could be just building a base above $1.80, marking the C wave in this running flat correction before the major breakout.

ChartNerd added that there could be a scenario in which XRP deviates below its major support before a V-shape recovery. However, he warned that losing this area would not be healthy, detailing that the only way to invalidate the pattern would be for the price to close below the structure’s support, retest it as resistance, and drop to lower levels.

XRP’s Price Defends Macro Support

The analyst emphasized the importance of the $1.80 level, noting that XRP has been defending this territory for over a year and could lead to a new all-time high (ATH) rally.

“This is a macro accumulation zone, and we evidently also have two major levels of descending resistance for XRP,” he detailed, highlighting that when the first multi-month descending resistance broke, the altcoin rallied to a new all-time high.

It’s pretty simple: we have descending resistance on our heads at the moment, and we once had a point of contact on this resistance at the $2.40 high (…) So, at this moment in time, the simplicity tells us: break the descending resistance, and this is where XRP really starts gearing up for further expansion.

Based on this, ChartNerd asserted that if the altcoin defends the $1.80 macro support, then a similar rally is likely. Similarly, he pointed to a bullish reversal structure building below the key $2.70 resistance on XRP’s chart.

Per the post, the cryptocurrency formed a three-month falling wedge pattern that was broken out of during the early January rally. Now, the price is retesting the pattern’s breakout level as support and could be preparing to climb toward the level it started forming.

“So XRP just needs to defend the guard at $1.80, and this is where we could be looking for that sort of major expansion and looking to press back up to the target of $2.70,” before potentially challenging its pre-Q4 range, he concluded.

Certified Elliott Wave analyst XForceGlobal (@XForceGlobal) told followers on X that “$5+ remains on the horizon,” arguing that the token’s past year of range-bound trading is validating an Elliott Wave “flat” correction that typically resolves with a sharp, final move before a continuation higher.

In a 10-minute video shared alongside the post, the analyst framed XRP’s recent price action as the late stage of a flat pattern, an extended period where neither bulls nor bears can force a clean trend. “A flat occurs when the market fails to trend on both sides. They’re basically evenly matched,” he said. “And that’s not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of balance.”

XRP Traders ‘Exhausted’ As Breakout Nears

XForceGlobal positioned the structure as a corrective phase within a larger bullish sequence, describing the market as forming a new floor rather than breaking down. “This is where the buyers and sellers enter a Mexican standoff with each other, creating a new price floor,” he said, adding that the sideways feel is the point: “They’re not designed to go anywhere, basically. And the markets naturally alternate between expansion and compression.”

The analyst emphasized the psychological aspect of prolonged consolidation, arguing that flats tend to “eliminate even the leverage traders through time rather than price” by exhausting both sides. “By the time the flat actually resolves, which is very close, in my opinion, most traders are emotionally already exhausted,” he said. “Positioning has been pretty much neutralized, and the path for continuation, to me, becomes very clear.”

In Elliott Wave terms, XForceGlobal described the flat as a three-part A-B-C structure, with waves A and B unfolding as corrective “three-wave” moves and wave C completing as an impulsive “five-wave” move. He argued that this final phase is the moment the market stops drifting and forces a resolution.

“Wave C must be impulsive because it represents the resolution of the balance that we have for waves A and B,” he said. “It’s not the continuation of a larger structure to the downside.” He framed impulsiveness as behavioral rather than directional, attributing it to urgency and follow-through once one side “decisively gives up,” clearing out the range that built during the earlier legs.

That distinction matters for positioning, because his base case anticipates one more decisive shakeout before a move higher. He said the market is currently in an “expanded flat” configuration where wave B pushed above the prior high, and he expects a break of local structure “once” before the market turns up. He highlighted $1.70 as a prior low that could be undercut as part of the process without invalidating the larger setup, so long as broader support holds.

XForceGlobal’s post leaned heavily on conviction built over time—“I didn’t spend 2,000+ days accumulating XRP for no reason!”—while also stressing that he has already taken some profit. In the transcript, he said he “personally took some profits around the $2.70 level” and would continue to “sell into strength.”

On upside expectations, he called for higher levels “in this current cycle,” tying potential targets to the duration of the consolidation. “The longer that we distribute here, the higher the targets are going to be,” he said, adding that “a minimum of a $6 range all the way up to even the $14 range is my personal target.”

He also flagged conditions that would change the trade management. If the market shows “red flags” and breaks further structure than he expects, he suggested that is where risk management should take priority.

For XRP traders, the practical takeaway from his framework is timing and path, not direction: a final, forceful leg lower could still be consistent with a bullish continuation thesis while a deeper structural breakdown would challenge it.

At press time, XRP traded at $1.91.

XRP is flashing a rare relative-strength signal against ETH, according to crypto analyst Matt Hughes (“The Great Mattsby”), who points to a 2-week Ichimoku cloud flip that he says hasn’t meaningfully held as support since 2021. With XRP also boxed inside a defined USD range on lower timeframes, Hughes frames the next phase as a conditional “prove it” moment: reclaim one level, and the market has room to work; fail it, and the breakout narrative stays premature.

XRP Poised To Outperform ETH?

Hughes’ primary claim is anchored to the XRP/ETH pair on a 2-week chart. In his read, there’s a massive regime change: “When looking at the 2-week Ichimoku cloud, you can see that XRP is doing something it hasn’t done since 2021: flipping the 2-week cloud to support. The cloud has been a massive resistance for most of the chart’s history until now (with a notable breakout in 2021, but only a few weeks).”

On Hughes’ chart, XRP/ETH is pressing into the top side of the 2-week Ichimoku cloud, with the latest candle marked around 0.00062. His bullish read is that a clean flip, price holding above the cloud and treating it as a floor on pullbacks, would be a regime change for the pair.

XRP Roadmap To $9

Hughes’ shorter-timeframe work shifts from relative performance to mechanics in spot USD terms. On the daily XRP/USD chart, price is still behaving like a market that has not resolved its larger consolidation, oscillating between stacked horizontal levels while respecting sloping fan lines that visually reinforce why upside attempts have repeatedly stalled.

Hughes boils that structure down to one actionable threshold: “Price moves in increments, and this Gann fan perfectly illustrates why price is stuck in its current range. Once XRP can close candles above $2.30, the move up can continue.” Above that, the next targets on the daily timeframe are $2.59 and $2.95.

The weekly XRP/USD chart adds the next level if that acceptance arrives. Two extension levels (drawn from the 2014 low to the 2017 high) are explicitly marked: 2.272 at $3.09882 and 2.618 at $9.00194, with Hughes’ drawn path stepping first toward the low-$3 area before stretching higher if momentum persists.

Thus, Hughes’ bullish scenario is a two-part sequence: first, clear the USD range trigger (a sustained close above $2.30), then convert the last major zone before the 2025 high into support. He states it in more pointed terms on X: “XRP’s been grinding sideways for 1+ year while many other alts were bleeding. Not IF it hits $9—it’s WHEN. Key flip: $3.09 becomes support and then its go time.”

The failure scenario is simpler and more immediate. If XRP cannot secure closes above $2.30, the fan-and-range framework remains intact: rallies are still just rallies into the same ceiling, and the market risks reverting back towards $1.78.

However, a dip towards this price would not change anything about the long-term bullish chart of XRP. Pointing to a gap between chart structure and crowd sentiment, Hughes wrote:

“An actual infant in diapers and a 120-year-old grandpa who’s forgotten his own name can look at this chart and go, ‘Yep, classic breakout above the 2021 top, now flipping it to rock-solid support.’ Meanwhile, every bear on X, their mailman, their mailman’s dog walker, and that one guy who still thinks it’s 2022 are out here screaming ‘BEARISH! DOOM! SELL YOUR KIDS!’ like it’s still the bear market special. Bro, even my grandma’s bingo partner is bullish at this point. Wake up and smell the bull fuel.”

At press time, XRP traded at $1.9799.

XRP may be setting up for a final, cleaner long entry if the broader market delivers one more volatility-driven pullback, according to CryptoinsightUK’s Will Taylor, who says his preferred “risk to reward” zone sits materially below current support. The thesis hinges on whether Bitcoin prints a double-bottom-style retest and drags major alts into deeper liquidity pockets before the next leg higher.

In his Jan. 10 newsletter, Taylor framed early 2026 as a market caught between two plausible paths: a familiar pullback-and-recover structure that has defined prior Bitcoin dips, or a continuation higher that leaves would-be buyers watching price run away.

“The question mark for me is whether we do get a wick below this ascending trend line into that double bottom area and then push higher,” he wrote, adding that the setup is crowded. “On the other side of this, it does make you think that everyone is probably looking at the same structure and waiting for something like this to play out.”

Taylor said he had closed short-term trades during the week, not as a shift in his higher-timeframe view, but as a response to what he described as low-timeframe conditions and event risk. “Today we get the ruling on tariffs in the US. Is that going to provide some volatility?” he asked, pointing to a cluster of geopolitical headlines as potential catalysts that could either produce the pullback he’s watching for—or “deceive people… who are waiting for a pullback, and instead continue higher from here and leave those orders behind.”

Taylor’s shorter-term trade framework leans heavily on liquidity positioning, using Ethereum as a key tell for what Bitcoin might do next. He argued ETH “kind of favours the double bottom scenario” because “the amount of liquidity that has built up for ETH down to about $2,600” is heavier below than above on the hourly chart, an imbalance he views as a magnet if the market attempts to rally without first clearing that downside interest.

One Last Buying Opportunity For XRP?

That same logic carries into his XRP plan. Taylor said XRP has already “swept the highs of the range first,” forcing a decision point between holding a nearer support band—his “first blue box”—or fading into a deeper demand zone.

“Now the discussion becomes whether we move into the first blue box as a weaker area of support and hold there… or whether we come back down into the deeper support zone around $1.90 to $1.82 and hold there,” he wrote. “That deeper area is my preferred risk to reward zone for placing long positions, and that is where I will be looking to get back into an XRP long and add to my position if we see that move specifically.”

He added that the daily RSI on XRP was “close to crossing bearish,” presenting a technical backdrop that, in his view, supports the case for one more washout before trend continuation while stressing it does not alter his higher-timeframe bullish thesis.

Taylor then pivoted to a more stimulative medium-term narrative, citing talk of “putting 200 billion into additional mortgage backed security purchases to cut mortgage rates,” along with suggestions of potential stimulus checks and the inflation sensitivity of oil prices.

“Because of all of this, I think we’re going to see an epic rally. I don’t think people are really expecting the size or the scale of the move that could come,” Taylor wrote. “I believe we’re in the final shakeout period before the market really starts to march higher.” He said he remained “around 95% exposed to the market through spot positions,” framing the decision to close short-term trades as “a capital protection mechanism.”

His minimum XRP price target is $3.40 and extends to $4.40 based on liquidity in the medium term. Long-term, he says that the argument for the $8-$12 range is still valid, as reported last week.

Separate commentary in the newsletter from analyst @thecryptomann1 highlighted what “confirmation” would look like on Bitcoin: a reclaim of roughly $105,000, a push through, and a successful retest. He cited “a huge amount of volume around this region” and alignment with bull market support bands, arguing that regaining them would shift the read from “relief rally” to something more durable.

He also pointed to USDT dominance sitting on a multi-year trend line but showing weakness, including being “trapped below the 20 EMA” with RSI “below 50” and rolling over conditions that, if they resolve lower, could align with a risk-on breakout in majors.

At press time, XRP traded at $2.05.