XRP price prediction: $160 million behind Solana, 13 weeks of inflows against a 9 percent weekly loss

The American spot funds holding XRP together manage around $1.57 billion, the comparable Solana funds around $1.73 billion. Some $160 million still separates the two groups, and the gap has been shrinking for weeks. That is the real story behind the XRP price this Monday, because the price sheet itself does not show it: XRP traded at $1.38 at midday on Monday, a good 9 percent below where it stood a week earlier.

This contradiction is the heart of the forecast. Money has flowed into the XRP funds for thirteen consecutive weeks, most recently $11.31 million in the week to October 9. Over the same stretch the funds holding Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana lost a combined $1.248 billion. Even so, the assets of the XRP funds fell from $1.66 billion to $1.57 billion. To see where the price can run by year end, start with why inflows and fund assets are pointing in opposite directions here.

Where the XRP price stands on October 12

XRP traded at $1.38 at midday on Monday. The day's low sits at exactly that level and the high at $1.42. Over 24 hours the move is a loss of 1.45 percent, over seven days a loss of 9.02 percent. A week ago, then, the price was still around $1.52.

Over 30 days the gain is 0.78 percent; over twelve months the loss is 42.11 percent. The price sits 62.2 percent below its record high of $3.65. Market capitalisation stands at roughly $87 billion, turnover over the past 24 hours at about $1.52 billion, and circulating supply at 63.13 billion XRP. All figures come from CoinGecko, as of around midday on October 12.

What stands out on this price sheet is that the day's low and the current price coincide. XRP is trading at the bottom of its daily range, and without any single piece of news to explain the slide. That is precisely why the fund flows are worth a look.

The ETF gap to Solana: $1.57 billion against $1.73 billion

According to data from the research firm SoSoValue, reported by 24/7 Wall St. on October 12, the American Solana funds hold around $1.73 billion and the XRP funds around $1.57 billion. The difference of some $160 million amounts to just under 10 percent of the XRP funds' assets.

The direction this convergence comes from is the interesting part. The Solana funds recorded outflows on six of seven trading days in October, with only October 2 adding money. The XRP funds, by contrast, took in fresh capital over the same period. The gap is closing not because XRP is surging, but because money is being pulled out on the other side.

That matters for how to read it. A product taking in money month after month builds demand that is independent of the day's business on the spot market. Fund providers have to buy and hold the underlying coins, and that holding is locked away. The larger it grows, the smaller the freely tradable share of supply becomes.

Thirteen weeks of inflows and a smaller fund base all the same

In the week to October 9 the XRP funds took in a net $11.31 million. It was the thirteenth consecutive week of inflows. Cumulatively, inflows since launch add up to around $1.80 billion, as CryptoSlate reports, citing SoSoValue.

The same report carries the second figure that matters: net assets of the XRP funds fell over that week from $1.66 billion to $1.57 billion, a drop of 5.4 percent. The funds took in money and shrank regardless.

Why $1.80 billion of inflows leaves only $1.57 billion in assets

A spot ETF is a container, and its value rests on two quantities: how many coins sit inside, and what a coin costs. Inflows change only the first. The price changes the second, and it acts on the entire holding, not just on the money newly paid in.

Set cumulative inflows of around $1.80 billion against today's fund assets of around $1.57 billion and a difference of about $230 million remains. That sum comes from the two figures above and shows the order of magnitude by which the fall in the price has eaten into investors' contributions. Every new dollar flowing into the funds meets a holding that is losing value.

That leads to a sober conclusion for the forecast: fund inflows signal demand, but they are no lever that automatically carries the price. Weekly inflows of $11.31 million stand against daily turnover of around $1.52 billion. The weekly inflow therefore amounts to less than one percent of what trades in a single day. Read the inflow streak as a driver of the price and you overstate its size many times over.

The value of the streak lies elsewhere. Thirteen weeks show that one group of buyers has not sold across three months, while Bitcoin and Ethereum saw $681.1 million and $542.07 million withdrawn in that same week. That persistence says something about those buyers' time horizon, not about next week's price.

What has changed since the last XRP article

On Sunday the focus here was the state of voting in the XRP Ledger, when the lending function stood at 17 of the 25 votes required and the price was $1.39. Little has happened to the price since; it sits one cent lower at $1.38.

On the ledger itself the position is unchanged: the LendingProtocol amendment still stands at 17 votes. An amendment needs more than 80 percent of the trusted validators and must hold that majority for two full weeks before it goes live. If support drops below the line in between, the clock restarts. An activation date for the lending function therefore remains out of sight.

What is new is a different amendment: fixCleanup3_4_0 has reached the required majority and stands at 26 of 32 validators. It goes live on October 23. Confuse the two and a housekeeping update looks like the launch of the lending business. For the price, fixCleanup3_4_0 is immaterial; for market expectations it is not, because it shows the voting process working.

The levels the price is carrying today

On the downside, $1.38 is the level of the day, because the daily low and the current price meet there. If the price gives up that area during the session, there is no intermediate step from recent trading days before the next round number at $1.30.

On the upside the first hurdle is $1.42, the day's high. Above it comes last week's level at around $1.52. That second mark is the more telling of the two, because it marks the starting point of the current decline. Only once the price takes it back is the move of the past seven days undone.

Higher still sits $2.80, and that level deserves an assessment of its own.

Standard Chartered's target and the case against it

Geoffrey Kendrick, head of digital asset research at Standard Chartered, cut his year-end 2026 target for XRP from $8 to $2.80 back in February, a reduction of 65 percent. He cited outflows from crypto funds, the high level of interest rates and geopolitical uncertainty. His longer-term target of $28 by 2030 he left unchanged.

From today's level that target demands a rise of 102.9 percent. Eighty days remain until December 31. XRP has managed to double in less than three months several times in its history, most recently in the upswing after the turn of 2024 into 2025. Those moves each needed an external trigger, however, and no such trigger is visible in the calendar before year end.

The case against the target is also the development Kendrick himself gave as his reason for cutting it. Fund inflows have not accelerated; at $11.31 million a week they have stayed small, and fund assets have fallen of late. The grounds for the cut therefore still hold.

Two dates that can move the price in the coming weeks

On Wednesday, October 14, the US Department of Labor publishes the consumer price index for September, at 8:30 a.m. New York time and so 2:30 p.m. in Germany. The inflation reading helps decide how the market prices the next rate decision.

That decision comes on October 28, the second day of the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee meeting. For crypto assets the path of rates counts twice over: it sets how attractive interest-bearing investments look by comparison, and it steers the risk appetite of institutional investors, which is precisely the group buying through the funds.

Both dates fall before year end and therefore inside the period the $2.80 target refers to. Anyone following the forecast for XRP has in those two dates the most important junctions in the calendar.

What the US fund inflows mean for investors in Germany

The funds this article is about are American products. As a retail investor in Germany you cannot buy them, for a regulatory reason: the EU regulation on key information documents, PRIIPs Regulation (EU) No 1286/2014, requires a key information document in an official language of the relevant country before any sale to retail clients. Most American fund providers do not produce one, because they largely serve their home market. A broker supervised in the EU may then not sell the security to retail clients and either hides it or rejects the order. This block has applied since 2018.

Anyone already holding such a security may keep it and sell it, but not buy more. For everyone else two routes remain, and they differ considerably in tax terms. More on the products approved in Germany is in our overview of crypto ETFs in Germany.

The first route is buying the coins directly on a trading platform. Which platforms are licensed under the European crypto regulation MiCA and what they cost is set out in our comparison of crypto exchanges. The second route runs through exchange-traded debt securities, which in Europe trade as ETNs or ETPs and are available through any securities broker.

Holding period, ETNs and the December 31, 2026 cut-off

A direct purchase falls under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act. Sell your coins after a holding period of more than one year and the gain stays tax free. Sell within the year and the gain counts as other income and is taxed at your personal rate, with an exemption threshold of €1,000 a year.

With debt securities it depends on the product terms. If the security grants a genuine right to delivery of the coins, the tax authorities treat it like a direct investment under the Federal Ministry of Finance circular of May 10, 2022, because a claim to delivery in kind exists rather than a monetary claim. The one-year rule then applies. Without that right to delivery, the security falls under section 20 of the Income Tax Act and the 25 percent withholding tax applies plus the solidarity surcharge, regardless of how long you have held it. Which of the two regimes applies to your security is in the product terms and nowhere else. A tax tool with a portfolio tracker assigns the positions automatically after purchase.

There is also a date that matters directly for the forecast to year end. In early September 2026 the Federal Ministry of Finance published a draft bill under which gains on crypto assets would be taxed from 2027 as investment income at 25 percent regardless of the holding period, or 26.375 percent including the solidarity surcharge. The draft provides that holdings acquired up to December 31, 2026, remain under today's system and so keep the one-year rule.

A draft bill is not a law. It can still change in cabinet and in the parliamentary process, and the cut-off date for existing holdings is itself among the open points. That is exactly why this point is a reason to review your own timetable rather than postpone it.

Our assessment of the XRP price to year end

In the view of this desk, the $2.80 target for December 31, 2026, is not plausible on today's data. The evidence is above: weekly inflows into the funds come to $11.31 million, less than one percent of daily turnover of $1.52 billion. Fund assets fell 5.4 percent in that same week. And the path from $1.38 to $2.80 demands a doubling in 80 days for which no trigger is visible in the calendar.

Against that, crypto markets have regularly begun their largest moves with no visible cause beforehand, and the rate decision on October 28 could be such a turning point. The thirteen weeks of inflows also show a group of buyers that did not sell into falling prices. Anyone betting on that should adopt that group's time horizon rather than the horizon of a year-end target.

This assessment judges the situation and is not a recommendation to buy or sell XRP. With crypto assets, a total loss of the capital employed is possible.

XRP forecast: $2.80 demands 102.9 percent in 80 days

The inflow streak of the XRP funds is documented; its effect on the price is smaller than the headline suggests. To draw something from it for your own portfolio, work through it in this order:

1. Settle the product type. Decide whether you want to hold the coins directly or hold a debt security. On a direct purchase the one-year rule under section 23 of the Income Tax Act applies. Which MiCA-licensed platform suits your plan and what trading costs there is in the comparison of crypto exchanges.
2. With securities, read up on the right to delivery. Only a genuine right to delivery brings the one-year rule into play; otherwise it is the withholding tax. Which provider carries which securities and at what order fees is shown in the comparison of crypto brokers.
3. Document the purchase date. Record the date, quantity and price of every position, because the one-year rule hangs on it, and possibly the classification as an existing holding too. A tax tool with a portfolio tracker takes that from your trading data.

(As of October 12, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)