Ripple price at risk as meme coins crash, XRP Ledger growth stalls

Ripple price remains in a deep bear market as the softness in the crypto industry continued this week.

Ripple (XRP) has dropped by 30% from its January high, erasing most of the gains made earlier this year. This retreat aligns with the ongoing Bitcoin (BTC) and altcoin crash.

XRP price may be at risk of further weakness amid a slowdown in its ecosystem. CoinGecko shows that most XRP meme coins have plunged by double digits in the past few days. XRP Army token has dropped by over 30% in the last 7 days. 

PHNIX token has fallen by 32%, while Sigma, Drop, Pongo, Ripples, and 589 dropped by over 60%. 

Meanwhile, DeFi Llama data shows that the XRP Ledger’s growth has stalled. The total value locked in the ecosystem has remained at $80 million since Jan. 28.

XRPL DEX, the biggest decentralized exchange in the network, has the biggest market share with $80.3 million in assets. It is followed by OpenEden, a Real World Asset tokenization network with $5 million in assets. 

One encouraging member of the XRP ecosystem is the recently launched stablecoin Ripple USD (RLUSD). Its market cap has jumped to $108 million, and its daily volume averages over $150 million. RLUSD was recently added to Zero Hash, a blockchain infrastructure provider.

Another encouraging factor is that investors are mostly moving their XRP tokens out of exchanges. Coinglass data shows that XRP had outflows from exchanges in the last four consecutive days.

Exchange outflows are usually a sign that investors are moving their tokens to self-custody.

XRP price analysis

The weekly chart shows that the XRP price has wavered in the past few weeks, a performance that happened after its strong surge in November. 

This volatility may be a sign that the coin has moved into the distribution phase of the Wyckoff Theory. Wyckoff is an old theory that identifies four stages that assets go through. In XRP’s case, it remained in an accumulation phase between 2022 and 2024. 

It then entered the highly bullish markup phase in November last year. The distribution phase is characterized by high volatility, followed by the markdown phase, which has high supply and less demand.

A drop below this week’s low of $1.7900 will be a sign that it has moved to this markdown phase. A bullish continuation will be confirmed if the coin rises above the year-to-date high of $3.3877.