21Shares described the price scenario of three scenarios for XRP in 2026, arguing that the token is moving from a court-defined exchange to a price increase with ETF-driven demand and scalable ledger adoption.
In a research paper dated Jan. 23, 21Shares’ Matt Mena frames 2026 as a “transitional period” when XRP’s valuation is “focused on fundamentals” after the August 2025 deal that ended the pending SEC case. The company says the decision removed XRP’s limited structural limit “regardless of the inputs,” allowing the market to regain its all-time high of $3.66 and include the previous ceiling of $2.00 serving as support.
XRP Price Predictions for 2026
21Shares describes the post-paid regime as a robust asset environment: less choice of accounts, more accountability. With the legal cloud cleared, the note says that XRP “can no longer rely on court pronouncements or legal uncertainty to drive its valuation or excuses for inefficiency,” introducing the risk of “selling news” if usage fails to scale and the market re-evaluates the asset on the findings instead of legal relief.
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The company’s view is that transparency expands the potential customer base and product location in the US “US-based institutions. Managed funds and ETP issuers. Banks and payment companies.” According to 21Shares, those channels were previously pressured by compliance risks, and their re-entry sets a new stage for price discovery.
The second pillar is flow. 21Shares says US spot XRP ETFs “fundamentally rewrote” the XRP demand profile, reaching more than $1.3 billion in assets under management in its first month and entering a 55-day streak of consecutive inflows. The note leans heavily on the supply-demand argument, pairing ETF absorption with what appears to be unusually sticky retail conditions.
“Exchange funds are at a seven-year low at 1.7 billion XRP. Demand for Institutional ETFs is at odds with the public’s refusal to sell.” That friction, the company argues, is the “main engine” of potentially non-linear recall, while also warning that volatility slows both ways if penetration is slow.
To mitigate the charge of reflexivity, 21Shares points to the first year of US Bitcoin ETFs as a template, citing approximately $38 billion in net inflows and price movements from approximately $40,000 to $100,000 within 12 months. The difference, in their opinion, is excessive liquidity: XRP launched its ETF period with a much smaller market cap than Bitcoin did at its inception, which means a greater impact per dollar of net purchases, as long as those initial capture rates continue until 2026.
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The third pillar is service, and 21Shares positions XRPL as a “funding pipeline” for tokens and stablecoin payments. The note highlights the growth of RLUSD to more than 37,000 owners and a market increase of more than 1,800% from $72 million to $1.38 billion in less than a year, and XRPL DeFi TVL expanding almost 100x within two years to more than $100 million. It also showcases the Multi-Purpose Tokens standard as a way for institutions to issue RWAs with embedded metadata and compliance rules.
However, 21Shares is flagging the risk of execution: progress is “evolutionary, not explosive,” and XRPL trails competitors in development and user involvement, with competition for RWA flows cited in Canton, Solana, and other ecosystems.
Estimated highs for Shares 2026 put the base case at $2.45 (50% probability), the bull case at $2.69 (30%), and the bear case at $1.60 (implied -16%), with the main dynamic factors being continued ETF inflows, reasonable token volumes, and institutional RLUSD holdings.
At press time, XRP traded at $1.8792.
The featured image was created with DALL.E, a chart from TradingView.com
