XRP is on track to close its fifth consecutive month in negative territory, a rare stretch of sustained losses that has not been seen since late 2016. Despite holding at around $1.30, the token has declined nearly 30% in February alone, according to CoinGecko data, extending a broader five-month decline of roughly 50%.
XRP Flashes Pre-Bull Run Pattern
The last time XRP recorded five straight red monthly candles was between October 2016 and February 2017. During that period, the price slipped from $0.00885 to $0.00557, a decline of 37%, before finding a bottom near $0.0055 in March 2017. By May 2017, XRP had surged to $0.3988 — a gain of 7,000% in just two months.
After consolidating through the summer, the token climbed again, eventually reaching $3.31 in January 2018. From its March 2017 low, that marked a 60,000% increase.
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With XRP now following a similar path, market analyst Sam Daodu examined the comparison in a new report released on Monday.
Daodu noted that the current setup “rhymes” with the 2016–2017 structure: five consecutive months of declines, tightening price action, and signs that selling pressure may be exhausting itself. However, he cautioned that the market environment has changed dramatically since XRP was “a micro‑cap token.
In 2017, XRP’s total market value was less than $300 million. Daodu pointed out that at that level, even a few hundred million dollars in new capital might raise the price by thousands of percentage points.
Today, XRP has a market capitalization of about $88 billion. According to the analyst, this scale makes a 60,000% surge virtually impossible under any realistic market conditions.
250% Rally Still In Play
A comparable rally would imply a move to roughly $852 per token. With approximately 58 billion XRP in circulation, that would translate to a market capitalization exceeding $49 trillion — more than the combined value of all stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Still, Daodu argues that while a repeat of the 2017 explosion is off the table, a meaningful recovery remains within reach if the bottoming pattern holds.
A return to XRP’s July 2025 high of $3.65 would represent a gain of about 157% from current levels. A move toward $5 — near the upper range of analyst forecasts for 2026 — would amount to a 252% increase.
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Even more conservative projections suggest room for upside. Standard Chartered recently reduced its XRP target by 65%, citing near‑term headwinds, but its revised forecast of $2.80 would still imply a roughly 97% rise from current trading prices.
The key difference in this cycle, according to Daodu, lies in the source of demand. The explosive rally of 2017 was largely driven by retail speculation.
In contrast, any substantial gains this time would likely depend on institutional flows, including potential exchange‑traded fund (ETF) inflows, broader institutional adoption, and a recovery across the wider crypto market.
While another 60,000% run is unrealistic, Daodu believes a 150% to 250% advance is achievable if momentum shifts and capital returns to the sector.
Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com