During the Wednesday market recovery, XRP surged 7.9% to hit a one-week high of $1.47. The cryptocurrency has been hovering between $1.35-$1.50 over the past three weeks but has failed to break above the local range’s upper boundary.
As the price nears this resistance once again, an analyst has suggested that a short-term rally toward another critical level could be brewing, potentially setting the stage for the altcoin to decide its next market direction by the end of Q2.
XRP To See March Breakout
On Wednesday, analyst ChartNerd called for a short-term 20%-30% XRP rally in the next month or two, affirming that “relief is overdue” after six months of continuous downside pressure.
In a video analysis, the market observer affirmed that the cryptocurrency is attempting to build a base within its local range to retest a crucial resistance level after losing the $1.80-$2.00 area as support in January.
As he explained, XRP is attempting to form an ascending triangle or double bottom pattern in the daily timeframe, with the formation’s neckline sitting around the $1.50 mark.
Based on this, if the altcoin “coils up inside this triangle and eventually gets a breakout heading into March, this is where the potential lies of rallying back up to $1.80” to retest this previous area of support as resistance.
Meanwhile, if the cryptocurrency is forming a double bottom pattern, the analyst noted that “even a retrace to the $1.20 level would still mark a higher low before a short-term bullish reversal.”
In both cases, breaking out of the $1.50 resistance would validate a move toward the $1.80-$2.00 area, which he considers “a critical inflection point” as XRP held it as support for 400 days.
It would be a critical inflection point. I mean, potentially, we could respect some sort of ascending channel here as well, leading into March, which is what may guide us up to that $1.80 resistance. (…) If XRP does sort of respect these trend lines, it’s resistance. We’re back at support.
Is A Critical Retest Ahead?
Despite the bullish outlook, ChartNerd warned that XRP still risks a correction of up to 50%. Per the analyst, the $1.80 retest will determine whether this area has turned into resistance and the price will continue to go lower, or if it will be reclaimed and push to higher levels.
“If the rally into $1.80/$2 unfolds in March/April, that will be the telltale sign of whether $0.70 is on the cards or not. Breaking cleanly above $2 signals strength and invalidation of that potential. Rejecting it as resistance would then cause a potential $0.70 drop,” he added on X.
A reclaim of this key area as support could open the doors for a retest of the golden $2.40-$2.70 range, not visited since the Q4 2025 crash. It could also signal that the corrective period may be over.
However, he recently cautioned that losing the 200-week Exponential Moving Average (EMA) in the weekly timeframe and confirming it as resistance has historically signaled a major drop toward the $0.70 area.
In previous cycles, XRP entered a deep corrective move when it failed to hold this level, crashing around 50% to its bear market bottom. Therefore, he emphasized that the cryptocurrency needs a convincing reclaim of its crucial area to invalidate this potential outcome.
As of this writing, XRP is trading at $1.46, a 2.7% increase on the weekly timeframe.
