The past week delivered a striking contrast for Ripple and its native cryptocurrency.
It was a packed week for Ripple and XRP, with Evernorth making its long-anticipated Nasdaq debut after a major merger, Standard Chartered and Cross River expanding RLUSD access, and Ripple Prime pushing further into Wall Street.
None of those developments helped the company’s native asset mark any gains – just the opposite.
Wall Street and Ripple Expansion
Standard Chartered announced on October 12 that it is launching institutional custody for Ripple’s stablecoin on the XRP Ledger through its DIFC branch in Dubai. The banking behemoth is also working with Ripple and LMAX Group on a planned arrangement that could eventually allow RLUSD to serve as collateral for selected institutional trading products.
Evernorth Holdings began trading on Nasdaq under the XRPN ticker on the same day. Its stock opened at around $16.7, surged briefly to $19.40, before it dropped and closed at just under $17. The broader market’s correction, though, pushed it south at the end of the week, closing on Friday at $15.45.
Evernorth entered the public markets with approximately 473 million XRP in its treasury and $300 million in gross cash proceeds. A few days after the Nasdaq debut, the company named Ripple, Coinbase, Kraken, and BitGo as its first institutional execution partners. The group will help deploy the XRP treasury into institutional strategies beginning in Q4.
Ripple itself also made a Wall Street move by launching 24/7 real-world asset perpetual swaps through its prime brokerage platform. This gives institutional clients exposure to more than 100 reference markets covering stocks, ETFs, commodities, currencies, and other traditional assets.
Cross River Bank said it would integrate RLUSD and XRP Ledger settlement into its banking infrastructure on October 16, enabling eligible businesses to move between dollars and RLUSD, process cross-border payments, and manage treasury transfers through a single API.
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XRP Price Doesn’t Follow
The major institutional developments have failed to push XRP higher. The asset was rejected at $1.40 earlier this week and quickly tanked to $1.30. Although it rebounded to $1.38, it slumped once again as the week progressed and dived to a monthly low of $1.27 during the flash crash on Saturday evening.
On October 16, analysts identified several potential bottoming signals, with Ali Martinez indicating that he was watching $1.25 as a possible buying zone and $1.42-$1.60 as upside levels if the token rebounds.
Shortly after, EGRAG CRYPTO offered a much longer-term interpretation, arguing that XRP’s chaotic action around $1.30-$1.33 resembles previous prolonged bottoming formations. His bullish scenario requires a future breakout through $3.67, which could eventually open Fibonacci targets at $5.25, $6.33, $8.28, and a highly speculative $13.69.
