The Motley Fool is calling for XRP to fall further over the next 12 months, a fresh warning for holders already sitting on a steep loss. As of Oct. 26, the token was down 64% from last year's record high of $3.65 per token.
The call lands because XRP still has a real job inside the XRP Ledger. Banks and financial institutions can use it to move money across borders, and the network settles payments practically instantly at minimal cost compared with traditional payment rails. But that usefulness has not stopped XRP from being a brutal ride before: it first climbed above $3 per token in 2018, then lost more than 95% of its value and bottomed near $0.14 in 2020.
That history matters because XRP was never built to behave like a steady income asset, and it was not designed to be an investment at all. Its value comes from utility, not from a promise of smooth returns, and that leaves it exposed when the network around it changes. Ripple introduced an upgrade to the XRP Ledger in June that fixed bugs and reduced memory consumption, but the bigger shift came in late 2024, when Ripple launched Ripple USD, a U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoin that also runs on the XRP Ledger.
That is where the argument turns. Transaction fees on the XRP Ledger still must be paid in XRP, so the token keeps some organic demand. But if Ripple USD captures a larger share of transaction volume, less of the network's day-to-day activity may need XRP as the bridge asset that once sat at the center of the system. Ripple says XRP is useful for cross-border payments, and that is true. The harder question is whether a payment network built around a stablecoin can leave XRP just as central as before.
No specific price target is given for the next 12 months, which makes the warning harder to pin down and easier to dismiss. But the direction is clear enough. If XRP keeps losing ground while Ripple USD expands inside the same ledger, the token's role may narrow even if the network itself keeps growing. That would leave holders betting not just on XRP, but on how much of Ripple's payment flow still needs it.
