XRP Battles to Hold $1.09 as Network Upgrades and Futures Expiry Bookend a Tense Week

The token has been clinging to a narrow support band between $1.09 and $1.10, where buyers have repeatedly stepped in to prevent a slide toward the year’s low of $1.05. At around $1.11, XRP sits nearly 14% below its 50-day moving average and more than 27% under the 200-day line. The relative strength index has dropped to 38 — close to oversold territory but not quite there. Sellers, meanwhile, are lining up near $1.15, a level that has capped any brief rallies. A clean break above that mark would offer the first real signal that selling pressure is easing; a move below $1.09 would open the door to new psychological lows.

This defensive price action stands in stark contrast to what is happening inside the XRP Ledger. On June 22, developers activated version 3.2.0, laying the groundwork for complex financial products. The update includes two key extensions: XLS-65, which pools assets in shared vaults, and XLS-66, which governs unsecured fixed-term loans. Just a day later, the regulated protocol SOIL became the first application to tap this native lending infrastructure. Users can now generate yield directly on the blockchain without moving coins to external platforms. The network itself processed over 769,000 transactions on peak days in mid-June, with payments accounting for roughly 427,000 of those, at a throughput of about 23 transactions per second.

Yet the market remains unimpressed. XRP has shed more than 41% of its value since the start of the year. The macro backdrop — a strong US dollar and persistent headwinds — continues to weigh. The disconnect between on-chain activity and price is not accidental; token performance is driven by liquidity, exchange flows, and the willingness of buyers to defend support zones, not by ledger statistics alone.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying XRP?

A short-term catalyst looms on June 27, when the CoinDesk XRP futures contract expires at ICE Futures U.S. The settlement itself does not create a directional impulse, but it acts as an institutional time marker precisely when the spot price is hovering near its recent nadir. The question is whether the expiry triggers additional hedging or simply cements the current sideways grind. If the derivatives market is positioned one-sidedly, even moderate spot selling could move prices noticeably.

On the regulatory front, the CLARITY Act is on the US Senate agenda. If passed, the bill would classify digital assets such as XRP as commodities, shifting oversight from the SEC to the CFTC. That would be a significant legal milestone. Separately, the XRPL Commons has launched a developer incentive pool of 50,000 XRP to encourage new applications, part of a broader push to transform the ledger into a comprehensive financial ecosystem.

For now, the price picture hinges on three well-defined zones: the support area from $1.09 to $1.10, the recovery trigger at $1.15, and a resistance band between $1.17 and $1.25. Until XRP decisively breaks through any of these levels, the outcome remains open. The next clear impulse is unlikely to come from a protocol update alone — it will emerge from the interplay of futures settlement, spot liquidity, and whether buyers hold the line at $1.09 one more time.