Where Will XRP Be in 3 Years?

XRP's (CRYPTO: XRP) price set a record high of $3.65 on July 17, 2025. That marked a gain of more than 480% over the previous 12 months. But today, it trades at about $2.

XRP initially rallied as it overcame some of its biggest regulatory hurdles, but a lack of clear near-term catalysts dampened that initial enthusiasm. So could this volatile token bounce back and set fresh highs over the next three years?

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What regulatory challenges did XRP overcome?

XRP was created by the founders of Ripple Labs, a fintech company that specialized in blockchain-based payments, in 2012. Those founders pre-minted its entire supply of 100 billion tokens on the XRP Ledger prior to its debut, so it can't be actively mined or staked like other cryptocurrencies.

Ripple initially held 80 billion of those tokens, but it sold some of those coins to fund its own expansion. That unusual capital-raising strategy triggered a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which accused Ripple of selling unlicensed securities in 2020. That lawsuit caused Ripple to lose many of its top customers, and XRP was delisted from the top crypto exchanges. That's why its price stayed below $1 throughout most of 2020 to 2024.

But this August, that lawsuit finally concluded with a lighter-than-expected fine for Ripple. The court ruled that XRP wasn't an unlicensed security when it was sold to investors on public exchanges, but that it still qualified as one when it was sold to institutional investors.

After the SEC backed off, the top crypto exchanges relisted XRP and several asset management firms submitted their applications for XRP spot price exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Those first ETFs -- including Bitwise XRP (NYSEMKT: XRP) and Canary XRP ETF (NASDAQ: XRPC) -- were cleared to start trading in late November.

Ripple, which doesn't directly control the XRP Ledger but still serves as XRP's main platform, also submitted its application for a U.S. bank charter this July. If Ripple expands and evolves into a full-fledged digital bank, XRP could be more widely used for financial transactions.

Why did XRP pull back?

Yet XRP still isn't widely used for mainstream payments. Instead, it's mainly used as a bridge currency to accelerate certain financial transactions on Ripple. If a user wants to make a financial transaction across two different fiat currencies, they're both instantly converted to XRP (as a "bridge") on its ledger and back to the fiat currencies to shorten the transaction time. That method is cheaper and faster than traditional SWIFT transfers because the two fiat currencies don't need to be directly converted to each other.

But XRP can't be mined with powerful computer chips like Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), and its ledger doesn't natively support smart contracts -- which are used to develop decentralized applications (dApps) and other crypto assets -- like Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH). It only natively supports lightweight "hooks" which are used to create simpler applications on its blockchain, but it recently added Ethereum-compatible "sidechains" to tether more complex dApps to its platform.

Since XRP can't be valued by its scarcity or its growth potential as a developer platform, it's harder to see its longer-term catalysts. That might be why many of its investors took profits over the past five months as the broader crypto market cooled off.

What will happen over the next three years?

For XRP to bounce back over the next three years, it must be more widely adopted for mainstream payments and accumulated by institutional investors. But it could be difficult to break out of that bottleneck as it faces tougher competition from bigger cryptocurrencies and stablecoins -- which are mostly pinned to the U.S. dollar for stable returns.

Even Ripple launched its own stablecoin, Ripple USD (CRYPTO: RLUSD), last December. Ripple could use Ripple USD more frequently than XRP (which is more volatile) as a bridge currency, especially if it plans to expand into a full digital bank.

As for the rest of the crypto market, I believe blue chip tokens like Bitcoin and Ether will rise over the next three years as some of the other smaller tokens fizzle out. XRP can't be considered a blue chip token yet, but it also isn't a smaller meme coin like Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB). Therefore, I expect XRP's price to gradually stabilize over the next three years -- but I'm not confident that it will bounce back and set fresh highs until some clearer catalysts materialize.

Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.