XRP Could Hit $8 by 2026, Standard Chartered Predicts

Geoffrey Kendrick, who leads digital asset research at Standard Chartered, now expects XRP to trade at $8 by 2026 – a level that would place it in a very different market category than it occupied for most of the past four years.

The call is not based on short-term momentum. Instead, Kendrick frames XRP as an asset that has finally moved out of legal limbo and into a phase where traditional financial products can scale exposure to it.

XRP’s narrative flips after years of constraint

For a long time, XRP’s price behavior was shaped less by adoption and more by uncertainty. Since late 2020, the token had been burdened by an enforcement case brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against Ripple, the firm most closely associated with the network.

That uncertainty acted as a ceiling. Even as XRP continued to be used for cross-border settlement, large investors largely stayed on the sidelines, wary of regulatory fallout.

That dynamic changed decisively this year. After a 2023 court ruling drew a clear line between exchange-based XRP trading and institutional sales, the SEC continued to push its case. When the regulator dropped its appeal in August, the legal risk that had defined XRP for nearly half a decade effectively disappeared.

From courtrooms to capital markets

The removal of legal overhang opened a door that had previously been shut: regulated investment products. Once the case was no longer a live threat, asset managers moved quickly to introduce spot XRP exchange-traded funds in the US.

Funds tied to XRP were launched by major players including Franklin Templeton, Canary, 21Shares, Bitwise, and Grayscale. According to data from SoSoValue, these products had already attracted roughly $1.14 billion in net inflows by late December, a signal that demand was not limited to retail traders chasing volatility.

For Kendrick, this is the real inflection point. ETFs transform XRP from a token that had to be held directly into a financial asset that fits neatly into portfolios managed by advisers, institutions, and long-term allocators.

Why the upside case stretches to 2026

With XRP trading around $1.86, Kendrick’s $8 target implies a gain of about 330%. He argues that such a move is plausible not because XRP is suddenly new, but because it is finally investable at scale.

In his view, regulatory clarity allows XRP to be priced on fundamentals and access rather than legal risk. Combined with ETF-driven demand and XRP’s positioning in payment infrastructure, Kendrick believes the market could reprice the asset meaningfully over the next two years.

Whether XRP ultimately reaches that level will depend on adoption, market conditions, and broader risk appetite. But the fact that such a forecast now comes from a global bank – rather than crypto insiders – highlights just how much XRP’s standing has changed since the days when court filings dictated its price action.

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