Crypto Insight UK director Will Taylor argued in a new video that XRP is “trading differently” in this cycle and said he sees a credible way for it to challenge Ethereum’s long-time No. 1 position.
The “XRP Curveball” theory.
Taylor emphasized his thesis in the words he highlighted to Mark Yusko, a well-known bitcoin investor , who warned of a possible “curveball” tied to XRP and a future where policymakers suppress private stablecoins. Yusko, in Taylor’s telling, speculated that a “CBDC version” could emerge when authorities successfully steer users away from assets like USDT and USDC, an outline Taylor said is in line with what the XRP community has been expecting for years.
Mark Yusko says he’s looking at a potential policy curveball, including a future CBDC framework that could limit crypto stablecoins like USDT and USDC, while commenting. $XRP the work may be happening mostly behind the scenes. 🤯 pic.twitter.com/bpWBw7lGX2
— Xaif Crypto🇮🇳|🇺🇸 (@Xaif_Crypto) February 9, 2026
“Now, what have I been saying about XRP this cycle? I said it looks different,” Taylor told viewers. “I said I think it’s going to challenge ETH for second place. And I think there’s a possibility that it’s going to challenge Bitcoin for first place this cycle. And I know a lot of people don’t agree… but that’s really what I think.”
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Taylor was careful to cast this idea as a false scenario while emphasizing why he believes XRP is positioned differently if US policy and institutional incentives shift in its favor. He referred to Ripple’s US footprint, its endurance through the “trials and tribulations” of regulation, and what he sees as the proximity of political power to Washington. In his view, those factors may matter if the next phase of crypto adoption is made more about compliance structures as concepts.
He also cited Ray Dalio’s comments, referenced in an interview that Taylor said aired “yesterday,” in which Dalio discussed the future of reduced transaction privacy and the risk of “shutdown” if not politically approved, a situation Taylor linked to the broader CBDC discourse. Taylor emphasized that his point was not that such an outcome is desirable, but that marketers should set what they think is most likely, not what they want to happen.
“If I could change the way I thought the world was going to be, I could put my capital somewhere else and I could make the world a different place,” Taylor said. “But I wasn’t born in a world where I can choose what happens in the future. But I was born in a world where I get to see what I think will happen and place my bets accordingly. It’s just like trading. You don’t trade or invest in something you want to happen. You put in something you think will happen.”
XRP vs. ETH vs. BTC
On the market structure side, Taylor focuses on bitcoin’s dominance, arguing that it is “really, really tight” in Bollinger Bands, a situation he reads as a setup for volatility. He also explored a historical example where an 11% bitcoin pullback preceded what he described as a 490% surge in XRP, and said that, historically, declines in bitcoin dominance have often been accompanied by sharp performance in XRP.
Taylor’s core claim is that the suppression of governance has continued for about six months and is now at levels he compares to an earlier era, “before ETH and ICOs”, when governance looked structurally different. He allowed for the opposite effect, where governance pushes up and bitcoin “drains the liquid,” but said he further favors a breach of governance that will automatically strengthen the altcoin beta case, with XRP as the chosen beneficiary if the narrative catalysts come to the side of the movement.
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Taylor also relied on Binance’s volume comparison across the three-day candles, arguing that XRP’s recovery volume looks more aggressive than the previous selloff, while saying that sellers appear to be more dominant in ETH and BTC over the same frame. He tied that relative to the cross charts of XRP against ETH and BTC, explaining repeated attempts at range resistance and suggesting that “good price action” could accelerate XRP’s relative divergence.
He marked upcoming calendar items, including yesterday’s Clarity Act meeting and today’s XRP Public Day, while cautioning against taking a light pump. Still, Taylor’s broader point was about entering the kingdom he believes could come soon, pointing to the virtual currency centered above his chart levels, from around $1.50 to $4.30, with relatively little money positioned below.
“I think people will be shocked if we start to pull back and pull back quickly,” Taylor said, arguing that a quick move could force traders out of short-term positions. He then outlined his most bullish approach: bitcoin returning to new highs – he floated 150K and “180-ishk plus” as targets – while the dominance of bitcoin “nukes,” putting what he called “crazy price action” for XRP if it catches a share of that dominance at rest.
At press time, XRP traded at $1.3594.
The featured image was created with DALL.E, a chart from TradingView.com
