XRP (XRP) has retreated a bit in the past 7 days, dropping from a recent high of $1.65 to $1.50 at the time of writing.
However, today’s inflation report in the United States could catalyze the next leg up for the crypto market as a whole, as the PCE Price Index came in below the market’s expectations.
Today, the market missed its estimate for the PCE Price Index by 30 basis points, as the metric landed at 3.4%. As a result, analysts revisited their predictions for the next interest rate decision, and odds of a rate increase during the FOMC’s October meeting declined from around 51% to 37%.
XRP recovered from a session low of $1.48 before the report was released to $1.52 at the time of writing, meaning a 2.7% increase in just a few hours.
Trading volumes remain somewhat elevated, currently sitting at $4.3 billion. This figure accounts for 4.4% of the asset’s circulating market cap, and it is twice as high as the volumes we saw before this latest bull market started.
XRP Validators Continue to Vote on the Launch of a Lending Protocol
We have recently been tracking the progress of two proposals for the XRP Ledger that would pave the way for the launch of a lending protocol in which XRP will act as collateral and Ripple USD (RLUSD), the network’s native stablecoin, as the settlement asset.
Thus far, neither of the two proposals has crossed the minimum 80% threshold required to enable them. However, the voting continues. We believe that the launch of this feature could drive higher demand toward XRP, as it will create an additional use case for the token.
The adoption of RLUSD as a top DeFi asset continues to advance, as reflected by its steadily growing market cap. Since its launch in December 2024, this token has seen its market value rise from around $72 million to $2.5 billion.
The approval of support legislation and regulations for crypto assets in the U.S. could be the definite catalyst that ends up propelling the price of XRP in the long term. Until then, Ripple seems to be taking the necessary steps to position its blockchain to capitalize on this.
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See all Ripple forecastsXRP Should Resume Its Rally to $1.80 Shortly
A strong climb and subsequent retest of the 200-day exponential moving average (EMA) from above sent a definitive signal that the cycle has shifted. Now, XRP could be setting its sights on the $1.80 target as odds of a rate hike dropped sharply.
Our previous XRP price prediction from September 2 identified a trading opportunity for this token, following a retest of the $1.32 area. This was a former resistance level that has now turned into support, and we believe that this has set the stage for a steady uptrend to $1.80.
Momentum continues to be on the side of bulls as the Relative Strength Index (RSI) is sitting above 50. We see the odds of a pullback to $1.42 as a highly likely scenario, as the market needs additional liquidity to keep rallying.
However, today’s cooler-than-expected inflation print should set the stage for the continuation of the current rally, and late buyers are probably positioning to capitalize on that drop, if it happens.
