XRP leads altcoins gains as analysts eye $1 by the end of the week

XRP surged over 16% in 24 hours, fueled by regulatory optimism following Donald Trump’s election, sparking expectations of a rally to $1.

XRP was trading at $0.8035 when writing, leading the gains among the top 100 crypto assets with a 16.6% daily increase. This extended its seven-day gains to 45.9%, reaching its highest level this year, last seen on July 20, 2023.

Why is XRP price rising?

The rally coincided with heightened speculation on social media about Gary Gensler’s potential departure as SEC Chairman. Rumors of an imminent retirement were sparked by his Nov. 14 note, where he described his tenure at the SEC as “a great honor” and commended his colleagues for their dedication.

As Trump prepares for his second term, members of the crypto community anticipate that he will fulfill his promise to remove the current SEC Chair on his first day in office.

The community also speculates that Gary Gensler’s resignation as SEC Chair could prompt the agency to withdraw its latest appeal in the Ripple case, potentially bringing an end to the six-year legal battle between Ripple Labs and the securities watchdog.

Further, rumors that Trump could eliminate all capital taxes on cryptocurrencies issued by U.S. companies, potentially benefiting tokens like XRP, have also fuelled the recent bullish sentiment around the altcoin.

Another stimulus adding fuel to XRP’s price surge is the announcement by Société Générale’s digital asset subsidiary, SG-FORGE, that it will deploy its euro-backed stablecoin, EUR CoinVertible (EURCV), on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) network.

Deviating from the broader trend

XRP’s price rally stands out as it occurred on a day when Bitcoin (BTC) and other major cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), and BNB (BNB), declined by 4-6% over the past 24 hours. 

The drop was driven by profit-taking after several days of growth and was further exacerbated by hawkish remarks from Fed Chair Jerome Powell, which dampened market optimism for imminent rate cuts.

However, with several bullish catalysts at play, traders and analysts anticipate a rally toward the $1 mark. Crypto.news analyst also expect a similar target.

Analyst Dark Defender expects this to happen as early as the end of the week.

According to the analyst, if the seventh-largest altcoin maintains support above $0.7496 and secures the $0.76 level, a potential bull flag pattern on the 1-D XRP/USD chart could drive the price to a short-term target of $1.03 by the end of the week.

An even more bullish target was projected by trader BigMike, who observed that the token had broken out of a large symmetrical triangle pattern formed since mid-2020 on the 1-M/USD chart. He predicted that the break above the formation could potentially lead XRP to rally as high as $8 this cycle.

Meanwhile CoinGlass data shows that the open interest in the XRP futures market has also surged from a monthly low of $680 million to over $1.3 billion as of Nov. 15. Such a significant jump in open interest suggests growing trader activity, which could help XRP achieve the bullish targets projected by analysts.