Ripple (XRP) Price Breakout to $0.80 Anticipated as New-User Accounts Skyrockets

Insights:

• Ripple (XRP) price has exhibited a volatile performance this week, bouncing from lows of $0.59 to a local peak of $0.65. 
• Despite the choppy XRP price movement, the Ripple-backed blockchain network has attracted an unusually high number of new users. 
• Unlike most top 10 mega-cap assets, the current Relative Strength Index (RSI) trends show that XRP is far from overbought territory, which could attract more prospective investors. 

Ripple (XRP) holders have endured significant volatility this week as price bounced from lows of $0.59 to a local peak of $0.65 at press time on Dec 8. As new user accounts continue to increase, technical indicators suggest this could be a precursor for an XRP price breakout toward $0.80. 

XRP New User Acquisition Rate Spiked 54% This Week

A sudden pull-back saw XRP price briefly retrace below $0.60 on Dec 1 while other mega-cap crypto assets like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) raced to new yearly peaks. Despite the choppy price performance, the XRP ledger network has continued to attract an unusually high number new users this week.

According to Santiment, a prominent on-chain data tracking tool, XRP Network Growth (number of new user wallets created daily) has been in an uptrend over the last two months. Ripple’s series of legal victories over the US SEC has played pivotal in attracting new users to the XRPL ledger network. 

Despite the volatile price trend this week, XRP Network Growth recorded significant spikes. Looking at the chart below, XRP registered only 1,897 new user wallets on Sunday Dec 2. But since then, the figure has skyrocketed by 54% , hitting 2,933 at close of Thursday Dec 7. 

Network Growth is a vital on-chain metric that measures the rate at which a blockchain ecosystem is currently attracting new users. It essentially, tracks the number of new-user wallets created within a given period. 

Logically, a significant increase in network growth is interpreted as a bullish signal. It indicates that new users are trooping into the XRP ecosystem as the team puts its legal squabbles with regulators to bed.  

In the short-term, XRP price has relatively underperformed compared to the likes of Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL). 

However, having settled majority of the long-running legal squabbles that caused widespread fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) among investors since 2021, XRP is expected to welcome more prospective investors in the weeks  ahead.  

This steady growth in the number of new users puts XRP in prime poisiton for sustained price breakout in the long-term. 

XRP Price Forecast: Breaking $0.68 Could Catalyze Breakout toward $0.80

Unlike most top 10 mega-cap assets with strong performances this week, XRP Relative Strength Index (RSI) is currently trending at 61.96, which some distance away from overbought threshold at 70.  This could attract more prospective investors to enter LONG positions on XRP. 

The Bollinger Bands indicator also confirms the growing bullish momentum. It shows that XRP price has recently broken above the upper Bollinger Band at $0.65. 

However, for the bulls aim for a new 2023 peak above $0.83, the must first clear the $0.68 area which has been a major accumulation zone in recent months.

With many investors due to break-even around that $0.68, the bears could capitalize to force another retracement. But if the bulls can scale that resistance zone, XRP price could rally toward the $0.85 area as predicted. 

In the case of a pull-back, the bulls can once again rely on the lower Bollinger Band at $0.59 for significant support, as observed earlier this week.