How Trump is killing XRP

Despite the highly bullish expectations – and the initial reaction that sparked a 549.02% rally – XRP’s performance in 2025 has been lackluster.

The token is -1.54% down year-to-date (YTD) and, at $2.10, 36.56% below its $3.31 January 17 highs.

President Donald Trump has undoubtedly had a significant impact on cryptocurrency and the entire digital assets market, though the headwinds are arguably just a side effect of economic policy.

Did XRP lose its appeal as the SEC dropped the Ripple lawsuit?

Still, whether intentional or not, the effects are difficult to miss, not only in XRP’s market performance but also in the lack of positive reaction to long-awaited developments such as the news that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is dropping its long-standing lawsuit against Ripple Labs.

Indeed, though the revelation triggered a brief rally, other forces were quick to kick in and erase the gains, and send the token below its starting point. Such a situation showcases that the external factors driving the cryptocurrency market are stronger at press time on March 31 than any current industry developments.

Furthermore, judging by XRP’s recent performance, it appears increasingly likely that the token is rapidly losing its cultural significance. Specifically, it was far more reactive to positive developments while serving as a symbol of the digital assets industry’s resistance to what many saw as regulatory overreach.

Furthermore, the difference between the rally following the confirmation the former SEC Chair Gary Gensler would step down and the performance in the wake of the actual resignation demonstrate the discrepancy between what investors were hoping for and what they, at the end of the first quarter (Q1) of 2025, foresee for the cryptocurrency.

Why the XRP ETF could be a crypto market dud

Other expected bullish factors also appear increasingly dubious at the end of Q1. The approval of America’s first-ever spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in early 2024 sparked hopes that many other digital assets would follow.

In July 2024, Ethereum (ETH) ETFs followed, but similar products – widely expected to involve Solana (SOL) and XRP – are yet to come.

At face value, the March 24 announcement about the partnership between Trump Media (NASDAQ: DJT) and Crypto.com to issue cryptocurrency exchange-traded products is bullish for digital assets but could simultaneously indicate that their approval will be far less impactful than originally hoped.

Specifically, the partnership implies that spot cryptocurrency ETFs are set to become relatively commonplace, likely limiting the impact of any individual new product.

Even if the expected spot XRP fund retains some exclusivity, ETH’s performance after the approval is a stark warning that it may not be a bullish catalyst.

Between the arrival of the first spot Ethereum ETFs in July 2024 and the press time on March 31, the token plunged 47.36% from $3,482.98 to $1,833.44.

The headwinds may not be as strange as some have interpreted them.

Is Ripple set for short-term struggles despite the end of the XRP lawsuit?

Beyond the hype potentially driving the price upward, exchange-traded products expose digital assets to investors from outside the ecosystem – potentially investors without the ‘hodl’ mindset that is commonplace within the cryptocurrency market – while the liquidity boost ensures that individual trades have a smaller bearing on the price.

Lastly, it is worth noting that Ripple might struggle for some time to regain its footing. Many of the firm’s high-profile partnerships in recent years have been related to the development of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

Not only have the majority of these agreements been with relatively minor countries like Bhutan and Montenegro, but the CBDC drive itself has also died down significantly. Furthermore, President Trump joined the calls against even considering a digital dollar, effectively removing the world’s biggest economy from the race.

Still, though such a setup is likely to generate some headwinds – or at least remove a certain tailwinds vector – there is little doubt that Ripple will benefit greatly from the networking and technological work it has already done, as well as from the newfound regulatory clarity.

The 2025 XRP bull case remains

Similarly, despite the situation being generally bearish for XRP and the argument that cryptocurrency has, at least in the current cycle, reached its potential, there is no shortage of optimists, and the bull case has not been entirely invalidated.

As Finbold reported on March 30, the short-term bearish outlook has not erased the greater pattern forming for the cryptocurrency that indicates XRP might perform similarly to how it did in the 2020-2021 rally and climb 209.52% to $6.50 by October 2025.

Featured image via Shutterstock

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