XRP Price Climbs Toward a Bank Target Already Cut

$1.48 was the XRP print on SoSoValue’s fund board on September 28, five days after the token tagged $1.66. Fund creations, large-wallet buying, and a $5.40 chart from Peter Brandt are being treated as proof a new leg has begun. The same tape still had to rise 89% from $1.48 to reach Standard Chartered’s already-cut 2026 line of $2.80.

That gap is the story the cheerleading leaves out. The bounce from the August low is real. So is the bank’s 65% haircut on the year-end number.

The Rally Still Has to Climb 89% This Year

Geoffrey Kendrick, Standard Chartered’s global head of digital assets research, first put an $8 year-end 2026 mark on XRP in April 2025. In February he cut it to $2.80 after the token slid to $1.16, the steepest percentage cut in that round of crypto revisions. He kept $28 for 2030.

The new ladder is $2.80 in 2026, $7 in 2027, $12.60 in 2028, $19.60 in 2029, and $28 in 2030. From $1.55 on September 26, later notes still described an 81% climb to get onside for December 31. From the $1.48 board price on September 28, that same $2.80 print is 89% away.

THE STANDARD CHARTERED LADDER

Bitcoin’s 2026 mark in that same February note went from $150,000 to $100,000. Ether went from $7,500 to $4,000, and Solana from $250 to $135. XRP’s 65% cut was the largest of the set. A bounce toward $2.80 is the reduced case, not a return of the $8 one.

Peter Brandt Posted a Chart, Not a Trade

On September 21, veteran trader Peter Brandt shared a monthly XRP chart that, in his words, implies an eventual advance to $5.40. He gave no date. From $1.48 that objective is about 265% higher, and the first hurdle on the same chart is the 18-month moving average near $1.88.

This is my long-term chart of XRP. It implies an eventual advance to $5.40. A claim of a call or simple presentation of a chart is NOT a trade. People who claim trades need to provide proof or else the claims are BS. An X post is NOT proof.

Peter Brandt, veteran trader, on X, September 21, 2026

On September 27 he added that it is not necessary to be a certified cult member to be an interested owner of XRP, and that the charts alone have been reason enough to make a bet. He has spent years needling the same crowd. The constructive note is a chartist saying the structure is interesting, then refusing to let a screenshot stand as a position.

That distinction got flattened in the retells. A long-term $5.40 line sitting under a $2.80 bank ceiling for this year is not a cluster of agreement. It is two clocks. One has no alarm. The other already rang once, in February, and the alarm was a cut.

Spot XRP Funds Drew $1.79 Billion

U.S. spot XRP ETFs began trading in November 2025. By September 28 they showed cumulative net inflows of $1.79 billion on SoSoValue, with total net assets of $1.68 billion, or 1.79% of XRP’s market value. The $110 million gap between money in and assets left is the price decline since those shares were created.

The week of September 21 to 25 brought $75.59 million of net inflows, including $22.65 million on Friday, September 25. On September 28 the complex added $3.96 million more, with Bitwise’s ticker flat on the day and Canary taking the print. Creations kept arriving after the $1.66 high had already faded.

THE TWO FUNDS THAT TOOK THE WEEK

Kendrick’s higher band of $7 to $12.60 still leans on inflows scaling past $4 billion, plus a U.S. market-structure bill. At $1.79 billion, the funds are less than halfway to that $4 billion line. BlackRock still has no XRP product on the same board, so the bid is a second-tier issuer story, led by Bitwise and Franklin, not a full-weight Wall Street wrapper.

Bitwise Still Collects the Bulk of Creations

Bitwise’s $677.29 million of historical inflows make it the largest of the group, with Franklin’s XRPZ next at $500.99 million. Both funds are underwater against the cash they took in, which is what happens when the underlying token is lower than the average creation price. A strong week of inflows can still print beside a falling coin if existing holders sell into the bid.

Inflows Outrun the Funds’ Net Assets

That $1.79 billion versus $1.68 billion split is the cleanest read on the irony. Buyers of the listed products have been net adders. The pile they own is worth less than they sent. Calling the streak a price engine skips the part where the engine is absorbing supply, not repricing it back toward the 2025 high.

Whales Kept Buying as $1.60 Gave Way

Analyst Ali Martinez, posting as Ali Charts, said wallets in the 1 million to 10 million XRP group added more than 470 million tokens in five days through September 24, worth about $724 million at the prices then. He had earlier flagged about 1.54 billion XRP moving into large wallets over 96 hours. He also mapped an inverse head-and-shoulders on the daily chart, with a neckline near $1.60 and a measured move toward $2 if that line held.

XRP did push through $1.60 around September 22 and reached about $1.66 on September 23. Santiment Intelligence counted 1,917 transfers of $100,000 or more that day, the strongest such burst in about a month, and 3,647 new wallets. It also said whale transactions alone do not prove accumulation, because the same tape counts sales, hops between wallets, and repositioning.

🥳 XRP’s market value has now surpassed $1.60 for the first time since February 4th. The breakout arrived alongside 1,917 $100K+ whale transactions, the strongest high-value activity in roughly a month.

🐋 Whale transactions alone don’t prove accumulation, but they show major… pic.twitter.com/w8T59nJo8i

— Santiment Intelligence (@SantimentData) September 22, 2026

By September 28 the $1.60 line was back in the rear-view and the coin was at $1.48. Profit-taking followed President Donald Trump’s rejection of Iran’s seven-day proposal to open the Strait of Hormuz, with talks still expected later. A neckline that is tagged and lost is not a breakout. It is a failed test, and the $2 pattern target stays on the whiteboard until the line holds on a closing basis.

What the $28 Call Still Requires

The $28 figure is the one that travels. At about 63 billion coins in circulation it implies a market value near $1.76 trillion, in the same neighbourhood as Bitcoin’s peak in October 2025. Kendrick left that 2030 mark untouched when he cut 2026. The conditions underneath it did not get easier.

WHAT THE $28 MARK STILL ASKS FOR

• Fund scale: Spot XRP ETF inflows would need to grow past $4 billion, more than double the $1.79 billion already booked.
• U.S. rules: The CLARITY Act, which Kendrick’s higher $7 to $12.60 band also leans on, has not passed.
• Payments share: The $28 math assumes XRP settlement at a scale closer to SWIFT, not just listed fund demand.
• Network cash: Santiment put XRPL tokenized-asset and RLUSD balances near $4.26 billion, with about $2.4 billion of RLUSD in circulation, which is real activity and still a long way from a $1.76 trillion token.

Santiment’s RLUSD and tokenization totals are a useful specimen of the utility case, because they are dollars on the ledger rather than a price target. They also show how much of the network’s growth can sit in a stablecoin instead of in XRP itself. A bank can keep $28 on a slide for 2030 and still need an 89% rise just to clear this year’s reduced line.

August’s Low Did Not Rewrite the 2025 High

The path that produced the 60%-plus headlines started from a mid-August cycle low of $0.9877. XRP then ran to $1.66 on September 23, a 68% rise from that low, before slipping back to $1.48. Public market pages still list XRP among the largest tokens, and they also still show how far the 2025 peak sits from this bounce.

THE PATH FROM THE AUGUST LOW

1. April 2025: Kendrick sets $8 as the end-2026 XRP target.
2. July 17, 2025: XRP prints $3.65, the cycle high used on this tape.
3. November 2025: U.S. spot XRP ETFs begin trading.
4. February 2026: The 2026 target is cut to $2.80 after a slide to $1.16.
5. Mid-August 2026: XRP tags a cycle low of $0.9877.
6. September 16, 2026: Price sits near $1.25, then runs to $1.66 on September 23.
7. September 28, 2026: SoSoValue shows $1.48, $1.79 billion of inflows, and $1.68 billion of assets.

From $1.48 the July 2025 high of $3.65 is still 59% higher as a drawdown, and 147% away as a recovery. Brandt’s $5.40 line would require a move through that high first. The listed funds have been buyers. Large wallets added hundreds of millions of tokens into the $1.60 test. The bank that still prints $28 for 2030 already told clients that 2026 is a $2.80 year. Until the coin is actually there, the bounce is a climb toward a ceiling that was lowered in February, not a reset of the old $8 case.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of public market prices, fund-flow data, and named forecasts. It is informational only and does not constitute investment, trading, or financial advice, and it is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold XRP, any XRP exchange-traded fund, or any other digital asset. Readers should consult a qualified, licensed financial adviser who can assess their own objectives and risk tolerance before acting on any price, flow, or target discussed here. Figures and statuses reflect the SoSoValue board, company and analyst comments, and on-chain tallies cited above as of the dated sessions in this piece and may change with the next print.