XRP below $1.30: what matters before Wednesday's Fed decision

XRP lost the $1.30 mark overnight into October 27, 2026 and slipped as far as $1.28. By the afternoon the price was back at $1.32, 1.3 percent above where it stood 24 hours earlier. The day was not a collapse, then, but a brief puncture to the downside that the market picked back up. What triggered it was a wave of forced closures on the long side, and that wave has run its course. The four cents of daily range matter less than the three dates falling due over the next eight days: the US Federal Reserve's rate decision on Wednesday, Ripple's monthly escrow release on November 1, and the delayed upgrade to the XRP blockchain on November 4.

XRP fell to $1.28 and now trades at $1.32

The daily range ran from $1.28 to $1.32. In euro terms that is a band between 1.15 and 1.18 euros. Over seven days XRP is up 0.6 percent, over 30 days down 14.1 percent. Market capitalisation stands at roughly $83 billion, with turnover over the past 24 hours at about $1.4 billion.

That ratio is the real finding of the day. Turnover of $1.4 billion against $83 billion of market capitalisation means less than a sixtieth of the circulating supply changes hands on a quiet day. In a market like that, a single large order moves the price further than it would where the order book is thick. That is exactly why a limited wave of selling was enough to dip below $1.30, and exactly why the level had been recaptured by the afternoon.

XRP sits almost 64 percent below its all-time high of $3.65 from July 2025. That is not an argument about any single day, but it frames the picture: the coin has spent months in a range well below the old high, and every attempt to push higher runs into holdings bought at better prices.

More than $300 million in long positions were force-closed

The impulse came from the futures market. According to CoinGlass data analysed by CoinCentral on October 27, more than $300 million in long positions on XRP were force-closed within 24 hours. A failed run towards $1.39 came first: there the price hit a dense wall of selling and turned away. The ratio of long to short positions fell to 0.71 in the same analysis, so more bets were riding on falling prices than on rising ones.

The order of events matters, because it explains why the price came back so quickly. Forced closures on the long side are sales nobody chooses to make. While they run, they weigh on the price; they stop once the leveraged positions have been worked through. After that the selling pressure is gone and the price returns to where the spot market sees it. That is what happened on October 27.

What a long liquidation is, and why it sets off cascades

A long liquidation is the forced closure of a leveraged position betting on rising prices, carried out by the exchange because the trader's margin no longer covers it. The trader is not asked; the position is sold at the market price.

The cascade arises because those sales push the price down themselves and so shove the next position below its threshold. With XRP there is an added effect: many traders build positions at the same round numbers. When $1.30 or $1.26 gives way, there are not one but hundreds of margin thresholds stacked there. Anyone trading with leverage should know their liquidation price before opening the position, not once the exchange executes it. Fee structures and leverage models differ considerably from one venue to the next.

The $1.52 of October 5 sits 13.4 percent above today's price

To put the range in context, we counted XRP's price action over 30 days. The highest daily level in that window was $1.5197, reached on October 5, 2026. From the current level that is a gap of 13.4 percent. The lowest daily level across the 30 days was $1.2927; the intraday low of $1.28 on this October 27 is therefore the weakest reading of the whole window.

The basis is 30 daily values of the XRP price in US dollars. cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on October 27, 2026.

A sober interim conclusion follows. XRP is in a correction that has been running since October 5, and the low of that correction was set today, not last week. To pin the situation to a single number, take $1.52: as long as the price stays below it, the move of the past three weeks has not been worked off.

The Fed's rate decision lands on Wednesday, October 28

The US central bank meets on October 27 and 28, 2026. That is what the Federal Reserve Board's meeting calendar says, listing the Open Market Committee's dates for the full year. The decision therefore comes on Wednesday, the day after this slide below $1.30.

The link to the crypto market runs through leverage, not through XRP itself. Ahead of a rate decision, traders cut positions because the swing they have to absorb becomes impossible to size. That thins out market depth, and in a thinner market moves come out larger. What you see on Wednesday therefore says more about positioning in the futures market than about the protocol's prospects. For a position you intend to hold for months, a rate decision is a one-day event.

Up to 1 billion XRP come out of escrow on November 1

The second date is Ripple's monthly escrow release. On October 17, 2026 cryptoticker.io reported that up to 1 billion XRP will be released from escrow on November 1, and that in previous months only part of that amount stayed in the market.

This release is a calendar event, not a sale. Ripple has in the past booked the bulk of the released amount straight back into new escrow contracts. The number that matters to you is therefore the amount that ends up staying out, and that is only settled in the days after November 1. Pricing the release in as selling pressure means working with a figure nobody knows yet.

The XRPL upgrade fixCleanup3_4_0 now arrives on November 4

The third date concerns the blockchain itself. The fixCleanup3_4_0 amendment was originally due to go live at the end of October. On October 22, 2026 cryptoticker.io reported that it had missed October 23 and is now expected on November 4, because validator support briefly dropped below the required threshold.

How that mechanism works is set out in the XRP Ledger's amendment overview: a protocol change only goes live once it has held the support of more than 80 percent of trusted validators at every check across two weeks. Slip below that once and the clock starts again. That is precisely what happened here.

An amendment is a change to the XRP Ledger protocol that validators vote on and that does not activate without a majority. fixCleanup3_4_0 is a bundle of bug fixes, not a new feature. If you hold XRP, nothing about your balance or your address changes on November 4. The date only matters if you run your own applications on the blockchain or submit transactions automatically.

When buying in Germany, the exchange's MiCA licence decides

Now that the EU regulation on markets in crypto-assets applies in full, only a licensed provider may sell you XRP in Germany. In practice: before your first purchase, check whether the venue can show an EU licence and whether it trades XRP against the euro at all, or only against a stablecoin. The difference costs money, because the second case means two conversions. Which venues hold an EU licence is set out in our overview of MiCA-regulated crypto exchanges.

The withdrawal side matters too. A venue that trades XRP cheaply but offers no euro payout to a German bank account is of little use when you sell. Check that before you deposit money, rather than when you want to take it out.

The one-year holding period decides the tax on your gain

In Germany the tax treatment turns on the holding period, meaning the gap between purchase and sale. Gains from selling crypto-assets fall under private disposal transactions in section 23 of the Income Tax Act. If more than a year lies between acquisition and sale, the gain is tax-free. Sell within the year and the gain is taxed at your personal rate, once the annual allowance for all private disposal transactions has been exceeded.

That has an immediate consequence on days like this one. Buying the dip starts a fresh one-year clock for the amount you add. Selling into the recovery means you should know which tranche you are giving up. Without clean records of your purchase dates, that is hard to reconstruct later.

XRP has no staking; custody means an exchange or your own wallet

One widespread misconception belongs here. The XRP Ledger does not use proof of stake, so there is no staking for XRP in the technical sense. Where a yield on XRP is offered, a provider is lending your coins on and you are carrying that provider's default risk. For custody you have the usual choice between an exchange account, where the provider holds the keys, and your own wallet, where you hold them yourself and can also lose them yourself.

XRP at $1.32: the correction ends only above $1.52

The situation boils down to one number and three dates. As long as XRP trades below the 30-day high of $1.5197, the correction continues, and October 28, November 1 and November 4 are the days on which that can change. In concrete terms:

1. Check where your trading venue stands before the rate decision on October 28 thins out market depth. Does it hold an EU licence, and does it trade XRP against the euro? Our overview of crypto exchanges and their fees shows the differences.
2. Work out your purchase date and note, for each tranche, when the one-year period runs out. Which tool takes that off your hands is covered in our comparison of crypto tax software.
3. If you work with leverage, write down your liquidation price before you place the order. The terms offered by the venues are in our comparison of perp DEXs.

(As of October 27, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)