XRP staged a +15% overnight rally, reclaiming the symbolic $1 threshold and settling around $1.15. The move has immediately reignited the technical debate over what comes next.
Two Elliott Wave analysts are reading the exact same price structure in diametrically opposite ways. One is targeting $5.85, while the other was still anticipating a drop toward $0.86 just days ago. They cannot both be right.
This disagreement is far from trivial — it highlights the real limitations of wave analysis when applied to an asset as volatile as XRP, and raises a very concrete question for traders: which signal can actually be trusted?
The Bullish Case: A Validated Triple Dip and Breathtaking Price Targets
Analyst Dark Defender interprets the rebound as confirmation of a completed “triple dip” on the weekly chart. Under his Elliott Wave reading, XRP has finished a deep corrective wave, clearing the path for an impulsive Wave 5 with two successive targets: $5.8563 and then $9.0362.
These figures are spectacular, but the road to get there is lined with well-defined structural obstacles. XRP must first break through the $1.20–$1.30 resistance zone, then clear the $1.50 and $1.88 levels — three major weekly pivots that have each acted as a ceiling in the past. Without confirmation above these levels, the five-figure targets remain pure speculation.
The critical threshold for this scenario is clear: a weekly close below $1 would invalidate the entire Wave 5 thesis. The dollar mark remains the absolute dividing line between the bull case and the bear case.
The Bearish Case: When the Same Price Zone Tells the Opposite Story
Just a week ago, analyst CasiTrades published a radically different Elliott count. At the time, XRP was trading around $1.01 following a 2.5% drop triggered by the U.S. Senate‘s failure to advance the Clarity Act before the legislative recess. Her reading identified an ongoing Wave (3)-(4)-(5) sequence, with a projected floor at $0.95, a corrective bounce toward $1.00–$1.04, and then a final bearish leg down to $0.85–$0.86.
CasiTrades‘s technical argument rested on an RSI reading of 36.62 accompanied by a bearish divergence — a classic signal of weakening momentum. Price action since then has temporarily invalidated this scenario, but a return below $1 would be enough to reactivate it immediately.
This is precisely where the central lesson of this situation lies: two serious analysts, working from the same price history over a two-week window, arrive at projections separated by a factor of 10x. Elliott Wave is not an exact science — it is an interpretive framework, and XRP is a particularly striking demonstration of that reality.
The Rise of Institutional Activity: A Structural Signal Worth Watching
Beyond the technical debate, one market structure development deserves close attention. According to an Evernorth disclosure dated August 18, the overlap window between the London afternoon and New York morning sessions now accounts for ~23% of XRP’s total daily volume, up from 14.3% during the same period a year earlier. Three hours of institutional trading now concentrate nearly a quarter of all activity.
This shift is not insignificant. It signals a progressive institutionalization of XRP flows, driven by players operating on precise schedules and with meaningful position sizes. In this context, key support and resistance levels — particularly $1 and $1.30 — take on an additional dimension: they are no longer just technical reference points, but zones where institutional allocation decisions are actively being made.
For active traders, the short-term read remains binary: above $1, momentum favors the bulls and successive resistance levels represent realistic interim targets. Below $1, the corrective scenario regains full credibility and $0.86 becomes a viable target once again. The market will decide — the waves, as always, will only interpret it after the fact.
