'$XRP Needs To Stay Above $1'

"$XRP needs to stay above $1 otherwise things could get real ugly if it breaks $1 support," the trader @XRPcryptowolf posted on August 7, four days early.

"$XRP drops below $1 for the first time since Nov 2024 and it's not looking good," wrote another holder, @Finnajith, on August 12. The last daily close under a dollar was $0.8922, on November 15, 2024.

"$XRP just fell below $1 for the first time since November 2024," the trader @Yuriy_Biko posted nine minutes before that. XRP changed hands at $1.006 on August 13.

At the August 11 low it was worth less than RLUSD, Ripple’s own dollar stablecoin. I had flagged $1 as the level to watch in April.

'Not Currently Fully Backed'

"The bridge between the TX Chain and XRP Ledger (XRPL) was exploited due to a bug in the XRPL relayer logic combined with the XRPL DefaultRipple feature," said TX, the company behind the Coreum chain, in a statement. The attacker never sent any XRP.

He moved a token between two wallets he controlled and attached a deposit memo. Twenty-eight relayers running identical code read it as money arriving.

"Other bridged assets remain fully backed, while bridged XRP currently lacks complete reserve backing," TX said. Ninety-four payments went out over 97 minutes on August 9, and the bridge wallet fell from 200,410 XRP to 493.5.

"The bridge has been halted, the vulnerability has been identified, and all potential remedies are being evaluated," the company said. It had passed internal and third-party audits before deployment, and has filed a complaint with the FBI.

Thinner books "could allow comparatively small sell orders to move the market," the XRP developer Vincent Van Code told CryptoSlate. The theft was worth about $200,000. XRP is a $63 billion asset.

'Everything Comes Down To $1.06'

"Everything comes down to $1.06 for [$XRP]," the analyst Ali Martinez wrote on X on August 3. The level broke three days later.

"Hold it, and bulls can target $1.35 and $1.64," Martinez wrote. "Lose it, and the path opens toward $0.80 and potentially $0.62."

"This is not simply a correction after a strong run," Daniel Francis wrote in an August 6 analysis for Coinspeaker, after the seven US spot XRP funds took $27.29 million in July against the $666 million they gathered in their first month. "It is a structural question about whether the 2026 XRP bull thesis, built on ETF inflows, regulatory clarity, and institutional adoption, can survive contact with the data now available."

"The analytical question is no longer whether sellers are exhausted," Francis wrote. "It is whether buyers return before the $1 floor gives way on thin volume." Inflows in the week to August 8 came to $1.01 million, down 93%.

'Absorb A Growing Share'

"Bridge currencies like XRP weren't actually designed to provide returns for investors," Anthony Di Pizio wrote in an August 13 analysis for The Motley Fool. "There is a good chance that stablecoins will absorb a growing share of transaction volume over time because of their more favorable qualities."

XRP lost 95% in the two years after its 2018 peak. "If the recent decline matches the magnitude of the post-2018 plunge, then XRP could eventually fall to around $0.18 per token," Di Pizio wrote.

'The Ultimate Buying Opportunity'

"Larger $XRP holders are accumulating through weakness, not panic selling. That's a classic accumulation signal," @XRPcryptowolf posted on August 12. "The $XRP community won't ever give up. They're here for $5.89 and so much more."

Standard Chartered still carries $28 for 2030, six months after Geoff Kendrick cut the bank's 2026 target from $8 to $2.80. "XRP consolidates above $1 as the US Senate stalls the Clarity Act for September leaving the market to wonder if the $1 $XRP zone is the ultimate buying opportunity," @XRPcryptowolf wrote on August 8, with Polymarket putting the bill's 2026 odds at 20%.

"Remember what I told you about XRP when the bottom comes in! Don't forget," the strategist @adaora_crypto posted on August 12. XRP's low the next day was $1.0019.