Crypto commentator Nick O’Neill recently criticized Standard Chartered’s sharp downgrade of its XRP forecast, calling the move from $8 to $2.80 “not a revision, but a funeral.”
However, XRP advocate Bill Morgan disagrees. Morgan pushed back against the narrative that the bank’s updated outlook is disastrous.
According to him, he never believed XRP would reach $8 this year in the first place, so the revised target does not change his expectations. In his view, it is not necessarily bad news.
Notably, the revision came via an updated note to investors from Geoffrey Kendrick, Global Head of Digital Assets Research at Standard Chartered. It lowered the bank’s end-2026 XRP price target from $8 to $2.80, marking a massive 65% reduction.
The downgrade came after a brutal market selloff that has erased nearly $2 trillion from the broader crypto market since October. XRP itself has struggled in recent weeks. The asset briefly fell to $1.116 earlier this month, marking a massive 70% dip from its $3.66 peak.
Now, XRP is trading at $1.48 and has remained significantly down over the past month, even after a modest rebound.
Notably, Standard Chartered also trimmed its forecasts for other major cryptocurrencies. It now expects Bitcoin’s price to reclaim $100,000, down from its earlier $150,000 forecast. It also projects Ethereum to reach $4,000, as opposed to the $7,000 it initially forecast. Similarly, it dropped Solana’s $250 outlook to $135.
Despite the near-term caution, the bank maintained its long-term 2030 XRP target of $28, suggesting it still sees structural upside over time.
Nick O’Neill framed the downgrade as a sign of collapsing expectations in crypto. But Bill Morgan sees it differently.
For Morgan, the $8 target was always aggressive. A reduction to $2.80 simply aligns forecasts with current macroeconomic realities rather than signaling the death of XRP’s long-term thesis.
Standard Chartered itself noted that XRP and Ethereum could benefit from continued development in stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets. The bank also warned of further short-term declines across digital assets before any broader recovery later in 2026.
One potential catalyst for XRP remains U.S. crypto regulation, particularly the proposed Clarity Act. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently suggested that clearer rules could help the digital asset market recover.
If regulatory clarity improves and liquidity conditions stabilize, sentiment around XRP could shift again, regardless of revised price targets.
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