XRP ‘Looks Different’ This Cycle, Targets No. 2 Spot: Crypto Analyst

Crypto Insight UK director Will Taylor argued in a new video that XRP is “trading different” this cycle and said he sees a credible path for it to challenge Ethereum’s long-held No. 2 position, with an outside chance of even pressuring bitcoin if the right mix of narrative and market structure lands.

The “XRP Curveball” Theory

Taylor anchored his thesis to a comment he highlighted from Mark Yusko, a well-known bitcoin-focused investor, who warned of a potential “curveball” tied to XRP and a future where policymakers clamp down on private stablecoins. Yusko, in Taylor’s telling, speculated that a “CBDC version” could emerge where authorities effectively steer users away from assets like USDT and USDC, a framing Taylor said resonated with what parts of the XRP community have anticipated for years.

Mark Yusko says he’s watching for a potential policy curveball, including a future CBDC framework that could restrict private stablecoins like USDT and USDC, while noting $XRP activity may be happening more behind the scenes. https://t.co/ba4aqu2dLN pic.twitter.com/bpWBw7lGX2

— Xaif Crypto| (@Xaif_Crypto) February 9, 2026

“Now, what have I been saying about XRP this cycle? I’ve said that it looks different,” Taylor told viewers. “I’ve said that I think it will challenge ETH for spot number two. And I also think that there’s a potential that it challenges Bitcoin for the number one spot this cycle. And I know that a lot of people don’t agree… but that’s actually what I think.”

Taylor was careful to frame the idea as a non-base-case scenario while emphasizing why he believes XRP is uniquely positioned if US policy and institutional incentives shift in its favor. He pointed to Ripple’s US footprint, its endurance through regulatory “trials and tribulations,” and what he characterized as proximity to political power in Washington. In his view, those factors could matter if the next phase of crypto adoption is shaped as much by compliance architecture as by ideology.

He also cited comments from Ray Dalio, referenced via an interview Taylor said aired “yesterday,” where Dalio discussed a future of reduced transactional privacy and the risk of being “shut off” if politically disfavored, a scenario Taylor linked to broader CBDC discourse. Taylor emphasized that his point was not whether such an outcome is desirable, but that traders should position for what they think is most likely to happen, not what they want to happen.

“If I could change the way that I thought the world was going to be, I would put my capital somewhere else and I’d make the world a different place,” Taylor said. “But I’m not born in a world that I get to choose what happens in the future. But I am born into a world where I get to see what I think is going to happen and place my bets accordingly. It’s just like trading. You don’t trade or place an investment on something you want to happen. You place it on something that you think is going to happen.”

XRP Vs. ETH Vs. BTC

On the market-structure side, Taylor focused on bitcoin dominance, arguing it is “really, really tight” on Bollinger Bands, a condition he reads as a volatility setup. He revisited a historical example where an 11% bitcoin pullback preceded what he described as a 490% XRP surge, and argued that, historically, drops in bitcoin dominance have tended to coincide with sharp XRP outperformance.

Taylor’s core claim is that the compression in dominance has persisted for roughly six months and is now at levels he compared to an earlier era, “before ETH and ICOs”, when dominance dynamics looked structurally different. He allowed for the opposite outcome, where dominance squeezes higher and bitcoin “sucks the liquidity in,” but said he increasingly favors a downside dominance break that would mechanically strengthen the case for altcoin beta, with XRP as a candidate beneficiary if narrative catalysts arrive alongside the move.

Taylor also leaned on Binance volume comparisons across three-day candles, arguing XRP’s recovery volume looked more aggressive than the preceding selloff, while he said sellers appeared more dominant in ETH and BTC over the same framing. He tied that relative read to XRP cross charts versus ETH and BTC, describing repeated attempts at range resistance and suggesting a “positive price action” trigger could accelerate XRP’s relative breakout.

He flagged near-term calendar items, including yesterday’s Clarity Act meeting and the XRP Community Day today, while cautioning against assuming a reflexive pump. Still, Taylor’s broader point was about positioning into a regime shift he believes could arrive quickly, pointing to visible liquidity concentrated above spot levels on his charts, extending from roughly $1.50 up toward $4.30, with comparatively less liquidity stacked below.

“I think people are going to be shocked when we start to reverse and we reverse quickly,” Taylor said, arguing that a fast upside move could force traders out of short-term positioning. He then mapped his most bullish path: bitcoin returning to new highs – he floated 150K and “180-ishk plus” as targets – while bitcoin dominance “nukes,” setting up what he called “crazy price action” for XRP if it captures share of that dominance unwind.

At press time, XRP traded at $1.3594.