Moon Lambo Argues XRP (XRP) Can Still Break $3.84 After 9 Years

Nine Years Beneath $3.84

XRP (XRP) has now spent close to nine years below its January 2018 all-time high of $3.84, even after an almost eightfold run from roughly $0.49 in November 2024 to $3.66 by July 2025. That tension frames a widely circulated argument from YouTuber Moon Lambo, who pushed back this week on the idea that the token is permanently barred from price discovery. In his view, investors judging the asset by the multi-year chart alone are ignoring an expanded utility profile, and his own altcoin book is offered as evidence that years of stagnation can precede outsized moves. He bought Quant (QNT) at about $98 in 2023, rode it down to roughly $54, and now sits on an unrealized gain near 97% after a recovery to about $193 and a later spike toward $352. His Zcash (ZEC) trade is larger still: an entry near $112 in 2021, a drop to about $20, and a climb to roughly $1,700 this month — an unrealized gain of nearly 1,417%. The analogy has limits our desk would stress: supply, market capitalization and liquidity depth differ sharply, and pushing a nine-year ceiling on XRP requires demand measured in the tens of billions. ETF flows are the demand thesis most often cited — US XRP ETFs have accumulated 1.18 billion tokens — but sustained inflows must outweigh spot selling before any bid above $4 becomes credible.

Swell 2026 Lineup Revealed

Ripple, meanwhile, has published the full agenda for Swell 2026, its flagship conference set for Oct. 27-29 at The Shed in New York City, with more than 1,500 attendees expected. For the first time, the company is merging Swell with its XRP Ledger-focused Apex event and UBRI Connect, the academic gathering for its University Blockchain Research Initiative — a consolidation aimed at the whole XRP ecosystem. The roster stretches well beyond crypto. Actor and Water.org co-founder Matt Damon will appear with the nonprofit's CEO and co-founder Gary White in a keynote moderated by Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, centered on how Ripple Payments and the dollar-backed RLUSD stablecoin can make Water.org's work across Asia, Africa and Latin America faster and cheaper. Traditional finance is prominently represented: Bullish chairman and CEO Tom Farley, a former president of the New York Stock Exchange, joins Garlinghouse to discuss the convergence of crypto and traditional finance; Robinhood's Johann Kerbrat, senior vice president of Crypto and International, appears with Ripple President Monica Long; and BNY Global Head of Markets Laide Majiyagbe pairs with Tradeweb CEO Billy Hult on trading and liquidity. Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz, one of the XRP Ledger's original architects, returns to the technical stage with RippleX's Ayo Akinyele to cover XRPL privacy and scalability.

The 50-Week EMA Test

The technical picture is more cautious. Analyst ChartNerd notes that XRP has spent roughly six weeks pressed under its 50-week exponential moving average (EMA), a long-term trend gauge on the weekly candlestick chart, and compares the current structure to 2022 — when the token also labored beneath the same gauge before forming higher lows and recovering. On that reading, a defended higher low keeps the setup constructive, with the $1.80 zone the first checkpoint and the psychologically significant $2 level behind it. Neither target is a forecast: the scenario requires price to break the existing compression and firm up around the 50-week EMA, and a failure of the higher-low structure would weaken the 2022 parallel. Notably, the pressure has not dented the monthly trend — XRP is still eyeing a third straight green monthly close with September up 8.67%. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bybit.

ChartNerdhttps://x.com/ChartNerdTA/status/2104872407634776468

Demand, Not Analogy

COINOTAG's read: the three threads converge on a single variable — demand. The ZEC and QNT precedents prove only that patience can pay when a catalyst arrives; the Swell lineup shows Ripple building that catalyst through institutional rails; and the weekly chart beneath the 50-week EMA shows the demand has not yet shown up. The load-bearing primary record here is the analyst's own published chart on X, which sets explicit conditions: defend the higher low, reclaim the moving average. Until verified ETF inflows outweigh spot selling, our desk treats any price-discovery call on XRP, Ripple's cross-border settlement asset as premature — a view consistent with the $82,500 Bitcoin breakout condition tracked by Wintermute.