Will XRP Ever Be Below $1 Again?

At the moment, XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) is priced near $1.38, which is 62% below the $3.65 all-time high it reached in July 2025. For a coin that has spent most of its long life priced below a dollar, it's natural to wonder if it might revisit those depths once again.

Let's examine this asset's history and develop a reasonable answer.

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It wouldn't be the first time

The most important thing to understand here is that XRP's price tends to fluctuate significantly.

In January 2018, the coin peaked at $3.40 before plunging to just $0.26 by mid-September. In 2020, when the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Ripple, XRP's issuer, the coin dropped from $0.66 to $0.22 in weeks, and then went on spend more than two years below $1. And those are far from the only incidents where holders experienced sharp collapses from which the coin later recovered.

The current drawdown looks like it could be one of the more persistent ones in terms of duration and perhaps also depth.

Network activity and trading volumes on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) have slowed, with the number of daily active wallet addresses declining from 22,054 wallets 12 months ago to just 13,684 as of April 28. Furthermore, fewer new wallet addresses are being created than before, which likely means that the chain's rate of adoption is decelerating, at least for the moment.

Unfortunately, these look like symptoms of problems that could significantly hurt the coin's price over time, especially in the context of a prolonged crypto bear market.

Plan for a long winter (just in case)

So it's very plausible that XRP's price will one day be beneath $1, and perhaps soon. Nonetheless, if XRP falls under $1 because of a recession, inflation concerns, or a crypto bear market (like now), the recovery setup will be pretty strong.

Spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) now hold roughly $1.2 billion in cumulative net inflows since launching in late 2025. Plus, Ripple has been acquiring crypto companies to round out its suite of services and capabilities that plug into the XRPL. None of that financial plumbing or services value chain existed the last time XRP was sub-$1.

The actual scenario to worry about is the other one, where XRP stumbles below $1 because its fundamental story as an asset is unraveling -- like if the XRPL's utilization metrics continue to decline over the next year or so, rather than returning to their former upward trend. Under those conditions, it might make sense to think about selling rather than accumulating more.

XRP has rewarded patient holders who bought during prior crashes. For now, the odds are that it won't go under $1, and, even if it does, its chances of bouncing back are fairly high.

Alex Carchidi has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.