XRP Price: XRP Just Broke Below $1.35 — Will the $1.28 Support Hold?

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By Sam Daodu Published

Quick Read

  • XRP broke below $1.35 on March 28 after Bitcoin dropped to $66,000 and $14.16 billion in quarterly options expired on Deribit, ending a support level that had held through most of March.

  • The $1.28 support is the 23.6% Fibonacci bear market floor with 443 million XRP in accumulated cost basis, and below it there’s very little support until $1.11.

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XRP Price: XRP Just Broke Below $1.35 — Will the $1.28 Support Hold?

© Sigfrid Campama Puig / Shutterstock.com

XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) tested the $1.35 support level multiple times through March, and each time buyers stepped in before it could break lower. The $1.35 level became the base of a range that held even as Bitcoin slid from $71,000 to $66,000. Then $14.16 billion in quarterly options expired on Deribit on March 27—the largest expiry of 2026—and the selling pressure that followed finally broke the $1.35 floor. 

The XRP price is now trading around $1.31-$1.34, below the trendline that had supported the recovery from the $1.12 low in early February. The next key support sits at $1.28, where the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement and a concentrated cost basis cluster converge. How XRP reacts there could shape the next few weeks of price action, because below $1.28 there isn’t much standing between the current price and $1.11.

Why Did the XRP Price Break Below $1.35?

Gold Ripple (XRP) cryptocurrency with candle stick graph chart and digital background.
Alexandru Nika / Shutterstock.com

Bitcoin dropped from $71,000 to $66,000 in under a week, and the $14.16 billion quarterly options expiry on March 27 accelerated the selloff across every major crypto asset. XRP had been trying to hold $1.35 through all of it, but the buying that showed up at that level earlier in March wasn’t there anymore. 

The XRP price tested $1.35 three times between March 24 and March 26, and each bounce came on lower volume than the one before—a clear sign that the demand holding the level together was thinning out. By March 27, the trendline that had supported XRP’s recovery from the $1.12 low in early February broke as well. The trendline had been intact for nearly two months and gave the chart some structure even while the broader market bled. Once it gave way, the technicals changed. 

The MACD is below its signal line with the histogram expanding to the downside, the RSI sits at 41, and XRP ETF products posted zero flows on March 27. You’re looking at a market where the macro is hostile, the chart structure just cracked, and even the ETF bids that were quietly absorbing some of the selling went silent on the same day.

Why $1.28 Is the Level to Watch for XRP

A close-up shot of a silver and gold Ripple (XRP) cryptocurrency coin placed on a dark smartphone screen. The screen displays a candlestick chart with green and red bars indicating market fluctuations. Numerical values such as '0.195', '0.1971', '0.1962' and dates '05-13 00:55', '05-13 01:45' are visible, along with lines representing RSI indicators at the bottom left.
DUSAN ZIDAR / Shutterstock.com

The $1.28 support has been the bear market floor for XRP through this entire correction. It sits on the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement level, and around 443 million XRP was bought near that price—holders who have been stepping in to defend it every time XRP gets close. When XRP dropped to $1.12 in early February, this was the zone where the bounce started, and it recovered to $1.50 within two weeks. If you’ve been watching the chart since January, $1.28 is the level that’s caught XRP every time the selling got heavy.

What matters now is what’s underneath it. Between $1.28 and $1.11, there’s very little accumulated holder support or historical demand to slow a drop. If XRP’s $1.28 support breaks with real volume, you’re looking at a slide toward $1.11—the early February low that marked the worst point of 2026 so far. Below that, the next meaningful support is $1.00, and if XRP loses that, the downside targets drop to $0.82. So $1.28 isn’t just another support level on the chart—it’s the difference between XRP staying in a range and XRP entering territory it hasn’t traded in since the post-election rally started in late 2024.

What’s Next for the XRP Price?

If you’re holding XRP at $1.33-$1.35, what happens next comes down to whether $1.28 holds or breaks. A hold keeps the range intact and gives XRP a shot at firmly reclaiming $1.35 and eventually $1.42, where the 50-day moving average sits. A break opens the door to $1.11 and potentially $1.00, with very little buyer defence in between.

XRP’s on-chain realized losses hit a 39-month high in February, according to Santiment. The last time that metric spiked this hard was in late 2022, and XRP rallied 114% over the following eight months. That doesn’t guarantee the same outcome, but it tells you that this level of capitulation has historically shown up near the end of selloffs. 

Whether $1.28 holds will likely come down to Bitcoin. If BTC manages to hold $65,000 and break back above $70,000, the floor has a real chance of catching. If Bitcoin breaks below $65,000 to $60,000 or worse, no level on XRP’s chart is going to hold it.

Photo of Sam Daodu
About the Author Sam Daodu →

Sam Daodu is a crypto analyst who's spent nearly a decade making blockchain understandable—no easy task when most whitepapers read like fever dreams. He writes for 24/7 Wall St., covering Bitcoin, altcoins, and crypto market analysis for investors. Before crypto, he was a tech writer (back when explaining "the cloud" was peak innovation). Since 2018, he's written for CoinTelegraph, Yahoo Finance, The Block, Cryptonews, Zypto, Rain, and more—basically anywhere people want crypto news without the headache. Sam runs MacLabs Marketing, a content agency for crypto brands tired of sounding like AI wrote their website. He also publishes free crypto education on his site for Web3 enthusiasts who think "gas fees" is a typo. When he's not writing or staring at charts, Sam's either: - Watching anime (currently convinced One Piece has better tokenomics than most altcoins) - At the gym sculpting himself into a Greek god - Listening to the music your mum warned you only bad boys listen to Connect: LinkedIn | Email | MacLabs Marketing

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