From CryptoPotato · By Wayne Jones
XRP closed last week’s candle beneath its 20-week moving average, and analyst ChartNerd says in a video on X that a pullback toward $1 is now a live possibility.
A retest there could build a double bottom, an outcome the analyst compares to 2022, though a reclaim of $1.33 would weaken the case.
XRP Needs $1.33 Back to Avoid a Deeper Retrace
XRP, worth $1.33 on CoinGecko at the time of writing, rose by 2% within the last 24 hours but lost nearly 3% within the last week. At the same time, it lost 6% within the last 30 days and is down 45% from a year ago, pushing it 63% lower than its all-time high of $3.65.
The weekly chart tells the rest. In the week of September 14, XRP wicked below the 20-week exponential moving average (EMA), a trend line built from recent weekly closes, but closed above it and climbed to the 50-week EMA near $1.50. That line has rejected price for nine to ten weeks, following a roughly 70% bounce from a 98-cent low to $1.70, and the pullback since has been about 25%.
Of the $1.30 area, the analyst noted that “the bulls have a lifeline here.” Reclaiming and holding $1.33 would reopen a move toward $1.50, where a liquidity cluster, a zone crowded with leveraged trades, sits near $1.55, and clearing that range could point to $1.80 to $2.
If weekly closes keep landing under the 20-week line, the analyst warned, it “opens the door for a deeper retrace towards $1,” where the largest cluster of leveraged positions since the bottom sits.
Gaussian Channel and 2022 Precedent Frame the $1 Case
The monthly Gaussian Channel, an indicator that draws bands around long-term price trends, supplied the historical argument. After earlier cycle peaks, XRP lost the upper band and returned to the middle band, which now sits at 98 cents. This cycle, the upper band at $1.54 has capped price for three months, and XRP has not yet visited the middle line.
In 2022, ChartNerd pointed out, XRP bottomed, ran 90% into the 50-week EMA and fell back to its lows within a week or two of losing the 20-week line. The analyst sees a similar setup now, though earlier targets of 90 to 70 cents never played out, and the caveat is blunt: “I do not know what’s going to happen.”
On the XRP/BTC three-month chart, past outperformance against Bitcoin has started from a lower demand zone, while the pair has met the same horizontal resistance for six years. The analyst expects Bitcoin to take more of the spotlight in 2027.
Meanwhile, exchange figures are pointing to a change in investor behavior, even if not a definitive direction for price. As CryptoPotato reported earlier, Binance withdrawals under 10,000 XRP rose from 3% to 19.7% of outflow value between September 30 and October 20, the highest share since October 2024, according to CryptoQuant. Reserves across three major exchanges gained 120 million XRP, and spot XRP ETFs logged zero net flows on Monday.