XRP price prediction: $1.57 bull, $1.18 bear

XRP is not a round-number year-end call just because spot funds exist. From the completed Kraken XRPUSD close of $1.29489 on Sunday, 25 October 2026, the 47 weekday sessions through 31 December put the bull at $2.07, the base at $1.43, and the bear at $1.12. That bull sits 7 cents from a published $2 bull and 5 cents from a published $2.12 bull, so it is not the headline. The title pair is the same distribution over ten weekday sessions through Friday, 6 November: a bull of $1.57, a base of $1.32, and a bear of $1.18.

What that coverage misses is the cost already in the funds. XRP Insights puts the average acquisition price of the tracked XRP, including the Bitwise index sleeve, at $1.7118 through 23 October. The page marked XRP at $1.29 that day, about $503 million under that cost. The ten-session bull does not reach $1.7118. The year-end bull does, and the collision rule is why the headline stops on 6 November.

Key facts

• Kraken XRPUSD completed daily candle, Sunday 25 October 2026: open $1.29774, high $1.31383, low $1.28403, close $1.29489. The Monday 26 October candle was still open at 12:11 UTC and printed $1.29147. It is not the spot. Kraken OHLC, saved 26 October 2026.
• Same completed Kraken session, Bitcoin: XBTUSD close $80,048.5 on 25 October 2026. Kraken XBTUSD.
• This series, 26 October 2026: 20-day average $1.3486, so the close is 3.98 percent under it. 50-day average $1.4048, so the close is 7.82 percent under it. Five sessions through 25 October: high $1.39797, low $1.25330.
• XRP Insights data page, fetched 26 October 2026, holdings through 23 October: break-even $1.7118 on 1.19 billion XRP with a $2.04 billion cost. At the page's $1.29 mark the position was about $503 million under that cost. Spot products excluding the index sleeve: $1.7068. XRP Insights.
• Saved totals file, settled row for 23 October 2026: 1,193,209,830.32 XRP held across seven reporting funds, net assets $1,568,265,022.94. That day's flow was an outflow of 1,805,553.83 XRP. The five sessions from 19 to 23 October summed to an inflow of 1,529,453.61 XRP, or $2,050,897.
• XRP Insights escrow page, ledger 107,914,159 at 11:19 UTC on 26 October 2026: 31,400,000,000 XRP, 31.4 percent of the 100 billion ever created, in 98 objects on eight Ripple accounts. Escrow schedule.
• Same page: Sunday, 1 November 2026, at 00:00 UTC, 1,000,000,000 XRP in two Ripple objects becomes releasable. Over the prior 12 monthly releases, 12 billion XRP was released and 8.4 billion, or 70 percent, was locked back, about 300 million XRP a month on net.
• Evernorth page, fetched 26 October 2026: Form 424B3 of 27 August 2026 reports at least 473,276,430 XRP at closing. Thirteen attributed wallets held 103,129,905 XRP, 21.8 percent of that figure, at 11:22 UTC on 26 October. Evernorth holdings.

What just happened, and why the obvious reading is wrong

The obvious reading is that a year of spot funds has already set the price, and that the next number is a round $2. Sunday's completed candle does not say that. The close was $1.29489, down 0.23 percent from Saturday's $1.29783, and 2.97 percent under the Tuesday 20 October close of $1.33457. Bitcoin's same completed Kraken candle closed at $80,048.5. At 12:11 UTC on Monday 26 October the next candle was still open and last printed $1.29147. That print was dropped. It is not an input to the bull or the bear.

The fund tape does not rescue the round number. On 23 October the seven funds held 1,193,209,830.32 XRP and $1,568,265,022.94 of net assets, and the day was an outflow of 1,805,553.83 XRP. From 19 October through 23 October the net inflow was 1,529,453.61 XRP, worth $2,050,897, which the data page rounds to about $2.1 million. That is not a bid that pulls a $1.29 token to $2. The break-even page puts the acquisition price at $1.7118 on a $2.04 billion cost, or $1.7068 without the index sleeve. At the page's $1.29 mark the position was about $503 million under cost. Sunday's close is in that neighborhood.

Who is exposed

The fund holders are the first book. On the 23 October break-even table, Bitwise held 416,613,000 XRP at a $1.58 average, Franklin's XRPZ 306,089,303 at $1.65, Canary's XRPC 243,433,454 at $1.84, 21Shares' TOXR 107,295,621 at $1.95, and Grayscale's GXRP 65,443,396 at $1.84. REX-Osprey's XRPR held 33,368,929 at $1.79, and the index sleeve held 20,966,128 at $1.99. Bitwise's $1.58 is one cent above the ten-session bull. That figure is an estimated acquisition cost, not this bull. Pre-December 2025 funds enter at the 1 December price, which can understate launch cost, and fees are ignored.

Ripple's escrow is the larger book. Ledger 107,914,159 at 11:19 UTC on 26 October counts 31.40 billion XRP in 98 objects on eight Ripple accounts, 31.4 percent of the 100 billion created. The page excludes other escrow, including 140 million XRP in the Flare Core Vault. A 24 October supply file matches the 31.40 billion and counts 22,609,495,394 XRP on 24 exchange wallets. Those are balances, not sell orders.

Evernorth is the named treasury, and the filing and the wallets do not match. Form 424B3 of 27 August 2026 reports at least 473,276,430 XRP at closing. At 11:22 UTC on 26 October, 13 attributed wallets held 103,129,905 XRP, 21.8 percent of that figure, on ledger 107,914,205. The page calls that a reconciliation, not a sale of the rest. XRPN is the expected Nasdaq symbol after a combination with Armada Acquisition Corp. II. Until close, the page says, XRPN is still Armada II Class A. RLUSD is a different pile: $2,469,681,722.95 as of 08:01 UTC on 24 October, with $967,573,549 on the XRP Ledger and $1,502,108,174 on Ethereum. A stablecoin does not absorb an escrow release. The Cross River integration and Ripple Prime's swap book are separate products, not a bid for the 1 November objects.

What the tape and the primary files show

The chart is Kraken's completed daily close from 25 October 2025 through Sunday's $1.29489. The file low of $0.98471 and the high of $2.6972 stay inside the top panel, with the 20-day and 50-day averages. The bottom panel draws only the title trio. The year-end $2.07 is not a line, because it is not the title.

Kraken XRPUSD daily closes through Sunday 25 October 2026. The top panel includes the daily lows. The horizontal lines are the ten-session bull, base, and bear, not the year-end pair. FinanceFeeds chart, 26 October 2026. Measure Figure Versus the $1.29489 close Source and date 20-day average $1.3486 Close is 3.98 percent below it Kraken series, 26 October 2026 50-day average $1.4048 Close is 7.82 percent below it Kraken series, 26 October 2026 Five-session high $1.39797 Close is 7.37 percent below it Kraken high, 21 October 2026 Five-session low $1.25330 Close is 3.32 percent above it Kraken low, 24 October 2026 Ten-session bull $1.57 21.25 percent above the close House formula, N=10, through 6 November ETF break-even, all tracked funds $1.7118 32.20 percent above the close XRP Insights, 23 October 2026 Year-end bull, not the title $2.07 59.86 percent above the close House formula, N=47, through 31 December Ripple escrow 31.40 billion XRP Not a price Ledger 107,914,159, 26 October 2026

Sunday's close is $0.0537 under the 20-day average and $0.1099 under the 50-day. It is $0.1031 under the 21 October high of $1.39797 and $0.0416 above the 24 October low of $1.25330. The largest absolute log-return in the 90 is 20 August, 0.1373, a simple rise of 14.71 percent from $1.10537 to $1.26800. The next session rose from $1.26800 to $1.45425. Each day is about 16 percent of the squared deviations, about 32 percent together. Neither was dropped. The mean is still positive, so both bulls print above the spot.

What the named officers have said

David Schwartz, CTO Emeritus at Ripple, put the escrow problem in one sentence on 6 June 2026. He wrote: "It's hard to predict because you have to make assumptions about how much XRP Ripple uses and how much gets put back into subsequent escrow months." A 70 percent re-lock describes the last 12 releases. It is not a pledge for 1 November.

On 25 December 2025 he went further back. Schwartz wrote: "Before the escrow, Ripple could have sold as much XRP as it wanted every month. And I opposed the decision to implement the escrow precisely because I didn't see enough upside to justify giving up that flexibility." Ripple chose that lock in December 2017, placing 55 billion XRP on ledger. The saved posts do not say what share of the November 2026 billion will be locked again.

Brad Garlinghouse, chief executive of Ripple, was talking about the fund side on 8 December 2025. He wrote that XRP was "the fastest crypto Spot ETF to reach $1B in AUM (since ETH) in the US." That sentence is about speed in the first weeks, not a cost basis and not a November supply figure. The 23 October file still shows net assets of $1.568 billion. The acquisition cost on the break-even page is $2.04 billion.

The supply tension inside the ten sessions

Sunday, 1 November, at 00:00 UTC, two Ripple objects, r9UUEX and rB3WNZ, become releasable for 1,000,000,000 XRP. Over the last 12 months EscrowFinish landed a median of 11 seconds after the unlock, and the longest delay was 2.3 days. The gross release is not, by itself, a sale. One billion XRP is 83.8 percent of the 1,193,209,830.32 XRP the tracked funds held on 23 October, or $1.295 billion at Sunday's close. About 300 million XRP on net is 25.1 percent of those holdings and $388.5 million. That net month is about 196 times the five-session fund inflow of 1,529,453.61 XRP.

The ten counted sessions are weekdays: 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30 October, then 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 November. Saturday 31 October and Sunday 1 November are Kraken candles, and they are not two of the ten. The next counted session is Monday 2 November. An earlier desk note on the November unlock laid out the objects. The 26 October ledger read still shows the same 1 billion coming free. If the 70 percent pattern holds, about 300 million XRP leaves on net and the recent ETF tape did not absorb it. If the re-lock is well under 70 percent, the bear at $1.18 is the nearer title price.

What happens next

On Sunday, 1 November 2026, at 00:00 UTC, the two objects become releasable. The test is whether EscrowFinish is followed by a new escrow for most of the tokens, as in the last 12 months, or by a smaller re-lock. A median lag of 11 seconds can put that answer on the ledger before Monday. A 2.3-day lag would push the finish into the counted sessions. A claim that November adds a billion of selling deletes the re-lock.

On Friday, 6 November 2026, the ten-session path expires. The bull at $1.57 is 21.25 percent above $1.29489 and 8.28 percent under the $1.7118 break-even. It would roughly tag Bitwise's $1.58 estimate and leave the other listed funds under water. The base at $1.32 is 1.94 percent above the close, the fit for a full re-lock and a quiet tape. The bear at $1.18 is 8.87 percent under the close. A thin re-lock plus a break of $1.25330 is the path that gets there.

On Thursday, 31 December 2026, the collision rule keeps a second path out of the title. Forty-seven weekday sessions, skipping Thanksgiving on 26 November and Christmas on 25 December, and still counting 27 November and 24 December, produce a bull of $2.07, a base of $1.43, and a bear of $1.12. The $2.07 bull is 20.9 percent above the $1.7118 break-even, and 7 cents from $2.00.

Bull, base, and bear

Both sets use the same inputs. Spot is $1.29489. The last 90 daily log-returns run from the 27 July 2026 close through 25 October 2026: 91 closes. Mu is 0.0021693822. Sigma, the sample standard deviation with divisor n minus 1, is 0.0355253943. Cents use round-half-up. The bull is above the spot, so the no-drift fallback is not used.

The year-end set uses N of 47. Base is $1.29489 times e to the power of 47 times mu, $1.43388, which rounds to $1.43, 10.43 percent above the spot. Bull adds 1.5 times sigma times the square root of 47. Unrounded it is $2.06620, which rounds to $2.07, 59.86 percent above the spot. Bear subtracts 1.0 times sigma times the square root of 47. Unrounded it is $1.12394, which rounds to $1.12, 13.51 percent below the spot. $2.07 is within $1 of $2.00, $2.12, $2.35, $2.46, $2.58, $2.80, $2.90, and $3.00. The ten-session path uses the same mu and sigma and changes only N, to 10, ending Friday, 6 November 2026. Base is $1.32329 and rounds to $1.32. Bull is $1.56617 and rounds to $1.57. Bear is $1.18267 and rounds to $1.18. That pair is the title. It is the formula, not a copy of the 21 October title of $2.12 and $1.13. The bull is 55 cents from $2.12. The bear is 5 cents from $1.13 because ten sessions of this sigma cannot open a wide gap under a $1.29 spot.

Case Price Versus the $1.29489 spot What has to be true Bull, ten sessions, the title $1.57 21.25 percent above Drift plus 1.5 standard deviations through 6 November. A heavy re-lock helps. The price still finishes under the $1.7118 fund cost. Base, ten sessions $1.32 1.94 percent above Only the average daily log-return compounds for ten sessions. A full re-lock fits this better than a squeeze. Bear, ten sessions, the title $1.18 8.87 percent below Drift minus one standard deviation. A thin re-lock, or a break of the $1.25330 low, does the rest. Bull, 31 December, not the title $2.07 59.86 percent above Forty-seven sessions realize the upside path and net escrow supply does not absorb it. Collides with published $2 and $2.12 titles. Base, 31 December, not the title $1.43 10.43 percent above Drift only, through the year-end session count. Still under the fund break-even. Bear, 31 December, not the title $1.12 13.51 percent below Drift minus one standard deviation over 47 sessions. Above the file low. Not a round $1.

The title bull, base, and bear are that ten-session distribution, not a bank target and not a round number chosen to clear $2. A named analyst target is a separate number. Bitwise's $1.58 is an estimated acquisition cost one cent above this bull, not the same call.

Frequently asked questions

Where do the sessions through 31 December 2026 put a fresh XRP bull and bear, once escrow and the ETF cost basis are in the distribution?

The year-end bull is $2.07 and the bear is $1.12, with a base of $1.43, from Sunday's $1.29489 Kraken close. That bull sits within $1 of published $2 and $2.12 bulls, so the title uses the ten-session pair through 6 November: bull $1.57, base $1.32, bear $1.18. The $1.7118 fund cost sits above the title bull and below the year-end bull. Escrow of 31.40 billion XRP, with 1 billion releasable on 1 November, is supply those paths do not spend.

Why is $2.07 not the headline if it is the year-end bull?

A year-end bull within $1 of $2.00, $2.12, $2.35, $2.46, $2.58, $2.80, $2.90, or $3.00 collides with a bull already printed in an English title, even if the bear is different. $2.07 is 7 cents from $2.00 and 5 cents from $2.12. The rule then recomputes on ten sessions with the same mean and the same standard deviation. The title is that second pair. Both calculations stay in the body. The first one is disqualified from the H1, not discarded.

Does the $1.57 bull put ETF holders back to even?

No. The tracked complex, including the Bitwise index sleeve, shows a $1.7118 break-even on the 23 October page, and $1.57 is 8.28 percent under that. Spot products alone show $1.7068. Bitwise's own XRP fund shows $1.58, one cent above this bull, and the other listed funds show $1.65 to $1.99. Hitting $1.57 would not put the average token inside the funds above its acquisition cost. The year-end bull of $2.07 would clear $1.7118, and that bull is not the title.

Does 1 November put 1 billion XRP up for sale?

It makes 1 billion XRP releasable at 00:00 UTC from two Ripple objects. Over the last 12 monthly releases, 12 billion was released and 8.4 billion, 70 percent, was locked back, leaving about 300 million a month on net. The finish transaction's median lag was 11 seconds, and the longest was 2.3 days. Net selling is a second transaction, not the unlock. Schwartz wrote in June that a forecast has to assume how much is put back.

How were the title bull and bear calculated?

They use the last 90 Kraken daily log-returns, not a live Monday print. The mean log-return is 0.0021693822 and the sample standard deviation is 0.0355253943. For ten sessions the base is the spot compounded at that mean, $1.32. The bull adds 1.5 standard deviations scaled by the square root of 10, which is $1.57. The bear subtracts one standard deviation on the same scale, which is $1.18. The 20 August and 21 August jumps stayed in the sample.

Is the Monday 26 October price the spot?

No. Kraken's daily candle is kept only after the next midnight UTC. At 12:11 UTC on 26 October the Monday candle was open and printed $1.29147 in the raw download. The formula and the chart stop at Sunday's completed close of $1.29489. A later Monday close would be a new spot and a new session count. This note does not wait for it, and it does not mix that open candle into the averages.

This is not financial advice.