Up 23% for the year, XRP(CRYPTO: XRP) remains one of the top-performing major cryptocurrency.
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The problem, though, is that XRP has once again dipped below $3 and currently trades for just $2.85 (as of Sept. 3). That’s more than 20% less than its 52-week high of $3.65 reached in July. So, what exactly will it take for XRP to soar higher in the coming months? Here are three possibilities.
The one catalyst that industry analysts have been buzzing about for much of 2025 is the imminent launch of new spot XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs), similar to the spot Bitcoin ETFs that debuted last year.
The thinking now is that these ETFs will provide a cheap and convenient way for both retail and institutional investors to get exposure to XRP. As a result, billions of dollars of new money could flow into the token as soon as the new spot ETFs are introduced.
At the beginning of the year, JPMorgan Chase predicted that anywhere from $4 billion to $8 billion might flow into XRP. If so, that would definitely give the digital coin a boost, similar to how the new spot ETFs sent the price of Bitcoin soaring last year.
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If all goes according to plan, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will approve the spot XRP ETFs by mid-October. In August, the SEC had a chance to approve them but pushed the approval deadline back to Oct. 18. So if you’re looking to circle a date on the calendar for XRP, that would be it.
Another possible boost for XRP would be a rate cut by the Federal Reserve. Earlier in August, it looked like the Fed might lower interest rates, partly as a way to offset the expected effect of global tariffs. But now it looks like the rate cut might be much less aggressive, given the early warning signs of inflation in the economy.
In general, Fed rate cuts are good for speculative assets such as cryptocurrencies. This has been proved time and time again in the crypto market. There’s not really any magic here; it’s just the result of safer interest-bearing investments (such as bonds) looking much less attractive, on a relative basis, amid lower interests. So even a cut of 25 basis points (0.25%) might be enough to send XRP soaring, along with the rest of the crypto market.
I’ve saved the best for last. At the end of the summer, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) announced its first-ever trial of the XRP blockchain for making cross-border payments. Granted, it’s still early innings here, but any integration of the XRP blockchain into SWIFT would be huge for Ripple, the company behind the token.
In an ultra-bullish scenario, SWIFT’s Ripple trial could transform XRP into an important building block of the global payment system for years to come. The idea here is that SWIFT is currently using 50-year-old legacy technology and needs to update its payment network for the modern demands of global trade. And that’s exactly what XRP’s blockchain technology potentially offers: a quicker, faster, and cheaper way to send cross-border payments.
At this point, it’s unclear exactly what this means for XRP, in terms of overall demand. But if you take the $150 trillion in transactions that pass through the SWIFT network annually and assume that XRP will be able to capture at least 1% of the total transaction value, then that’s $1.5 trillion pumping through the XRP blockchain network each year. That sheer volume would surely lead to much more demand for the XRP token, helping to push up its price.
The only sticking point here is that there are plenty of competing cross-border payment platforms, and there’s no guarantee that XRP will win out in the end. For example, Alphabet recently unveiled a new blockchain platform for making cross-border payments known as GCUL (Google Cloud Universal Ledger) that has already been dubbed a potential “XRP killer.”
There’s a lot of buzz around the crypto right now, but just remember that, in more than a decade, it has never traded higher than $3.84 — and that happened back in 2018. Thus, it’s entirely possible that it will once again disappoint, falling short of the $4 mark in 2025.
I’m bullish on XRP, however. There are three strong catalysts in place for the remainder of the year, and any one of them could send it higher in the months ahead.
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JPMorgan Chase is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Dominic Basulto has positions in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Bitcoin, Ethereum, JPMorgan Chase, and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
