XRP price slides 46% YTD, eyes $2.50 rebound

XRP price remained in a bear market and moved below the important support at $2, even as Ripple Labs made a major announcement on the RLUSD stablecoin.

Ripple (XRP) token was trading at $1.9725, down by ~46% from its highest point this year. According to crypto.news, its market capitalization dropped to $119 billion, while the 24-hour volume moved to $2.1 billion. 

In a statement, Ripple Labs said that it would launch the Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin to layer-2 networks using the Wormhole NTT standard. It will initially begin testing on popular layer-2 networks like Optimism, Base, Ink, and Unichain.

Ripple Labs noted that using the NTT standard will allow it to maintain native issuance and control of the RLUSD stablecoin, while providing security and flexibility of on-chain liquidity across multiple networks.

RLUSD has been one of the fastest-growing stablecoins, with its total assets growing from zero in December last year to $1.3 billion today. Most of this growth was on Ethereum, which crossed $1 billion in November. In a statement, Jack McDonald, SVP of Stablecoin at Ripple said:

The announcement came two days after Ripple Labs received conditional approval for its national banking charter by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. 

One main advantage of this approval is that Ripple Labs will now move its RLUSD assets from BNY to its independent bank. With its assets expected to grow, that move will likely save it millions of dollars in the long term. 

XRP has also continued to benefit from the resilient ETF inflows, which are now nearing $1 billion. The Canary XRP ETF holds $342 million in assets, while the recently-launched 21Shares fund has $240 million. 

XRP price technical analysis

The eight-hour chart shows that the XRP price remains under pressure this week. It has moved below the descending trendline that connects the highest swings since Oct. 7. 

This trendline is the neckline of the inverse head-and-shoulders pattern, a common bullish reversal sign. 

Therefore, a clear break above this trendline and the dynamic support of the 50-period moving average will point to more gains. A rebound may see it rebound to the key resistance level at $2.50, up by ~30% above the current level. 

The alternative scenario is where the Ripple price drops to the key support at $1.8140, its lowest point in October.