Every Major XRP Crash and Recovery: 2013 to 2026 by the Numbers
XRP's biggest crash was the 2018 collapse: from approximately $3.84 in January 2018 to roughly $0.25 by late 2018, a drawdown of about 93% that took roughly seven and a half years to fully recover. Across eight major drawdowns from 2013 to 2026, XRP's average peak-to-trough decline is approximately 69%, and completed recoveries averaged about 29 months. The pattern behind the averages: event-driven shock crashes healed in months, while full cycle unwinds took years.
Crypto commentary treats every XRP drawdown as either the end of the asset or a once-in-a-lifetime buying opportunity. The price history says something less dramatic and more useful: XRP has suffered eight major drawdowns of roughly 50% or more since 2013, with an average peak-to-trough decline of approximately 69%, and it has so far come back from every one of them, on timelines ranging from about two months to about seven and a half years. This is the full dataset: every major crash, how deep it went, what caused it, and how long recovery took.
All figures are approximate and drawn from public CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap price history. Early XRP data is thin, and 2018-era feeds disagree with each other, so exact peaks and troughs vary a few percent by source. The pattern does not.
Every Major XRP Drawdown: 2013 to 2026
| Crash | Peak (approx.) | Trough (approx.) | Max drawdown | Months to reclaim peak | Catalyst |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 to 2016 bust | $0.06 (Dec 2013) | $0.003 (mid 2014) | ~95% | ~40 (spring 2017) | First altcoin bubble unwound, Mt. Gox era winter |
| 2018 collapse | $3.84 (Jan 2018) | $0.25 (late 2018) | ~93% | ~90 (Jul 2025) | ICO bubble burst, retail exit, regulatory chill |
| COVID crash | $0.33 (Feb 2020) | $0.11 (Mar 2020) | ~65% | ~8 (Nov 2020) | Global liquidity panic |
| SEC lawsuit crash | $0.55 (Dec 21, 2020) | $0.20 (Dec 29, 2020) | ~63% | ~2 (Feb 2021) | SEC v. Ripple filing, US delistings |
| 2021 to 2022 bear | $1.96 (Apr 2021) | $0.29 (Jun 2022) | ~85% | ~44 (Dec 2024) | Terra, Celsius, 3AC, then FTX contagion |
| Post-Torres fade | $0.93 (Jul 2023) | $0.46 (Oct 2023) | ~50% | ~16 (Nov 2024) | SEC appeal risk, thin markets |
| Q1 2025 correction | $3.40 (Jan 2025) | $1.61 (Apr 2025) | ~53% | ~6 (Jul 2025) | Tariff shock after a sixfold rally |
| Oct 2025 cascade | $3.65 (Jul 2025) | $1.77 intraday (Oct 10, 2025) | ~50% | Not yet | Record ~$19B liquidation cascade, Q4 risk-off |
A note on the 2018 numbers: CoinMarketCap records the January 2018 high at approximately $3.84, while CoinGecko records it near $3.40, because 2018 exchange data was thin and distorted by the Korean market premium. Recovery times in this post use CoinGecko's series; against the $3.84 print, the 2018 high has arguably never been decisively reclaimed.
2014 to 2016: The Forgotten 95% Crash
XRP's first speculative peak came in early December 2013, at approximately $0.06, during the first broad altcoin mania. What followed was the deepest drawdown in the asset's history: by mid 2014 XRP traded near $0.003, a fall of roughly 95%, and it spent most of 2015 and 2016 below one cent while the Mt. Gox collapse dragged the whole market through its first long winter.
The December 2013 high was not reclaimed until the spring 2017 rally, approximately 40 months later. Few holders remember this crash because few holders were there, but it defines the statistical floor: XRP has fallen about 95% from a peak before and survived.
January 2018: The Biggest Crash in XRP History
XRP's most famous crash started at its most famous price. On January 4, 2018, XRP printed an all-time high of approximately $3.84 on CoinMarketCap's series. From there it fell almost without interruption to approximately $0.25 at the lows later in 2018, a drawdown of about 93%, and the slide ultimately extended to approximately $0.11 in March 2020, roughly 97% below the peak.
The recovery took approximately 90 months. Measured on CoinGecko's series, XRP did not set a new record until it reached approximately $3.65 on July 18, 2025, about seven and a half years after the 2018 top. It is the longest recovery in XRP's history and one of the longest for any major crypto asset that eventually made new highs at all.
2020: Two Shock Crashes in Nine Months
2020 delivered two of the sharpest crashes in the dataset, and both recovered faster than anything in 2014 or 2018.
March 2020: the COVID panic
As global markets seized up, XRP fell from approximately $0.33 in February 2020 to approximately $0.11 on March 13, 2020, a decline of about 65% in under a month. That print was also the final low of the entire post-2018 cycle. Stimulus-era liquidity brought XRP back to its February level by November 2020, approximately 8 months later.
December 2020: the SEC lawsuit
On December 22, 2020, the SEC sued Ripple, alleging XRP sales were unregistered securities offerings. XRP fell from approximately $0.55 to below $0.20 within about a week, a drop of roughly 60 to 65%, and Coinbase and most major US exchanges suspended or delisted XRP trading in early 2021. Yet the price reclaimed pre-lawsuit levels by February 2021, approximately 2 months later, and reached approximately $1.96 by April 2021. Even an existential-looking legal shock repriced within weeks once forced selling was exhausted.
2021 to 2022: The Second Great Unwind
From its April 2021 peak of approximately $1.96, XRP ground down for fourteen months to approximately $0.29 in June 2022, a drawdown of about 85%. The catalysts were sector-wide: the Terra collapse in May 2022, then Celsius, Three Arrows Capital, and finally FTX in November 2022, all while the unresolved SEC case suppressed US demand for XRP specifically.
The April 2021 peak was not reclaimed until early December 2024, approximately 44 months later, when XRP broke above $2 for the first time in over three years.
July 2023: The Torres Ruling Rally, and the Fade
On July 13, 2023, Judge Analisa Torres ruled that XRP itself is not inherently a security and that Ripple's programmatic exchange sales were not securities offerings. XRP jumped from approximately $0.47 to an intraday high near $0.93: a gain of more than 70% on the day, and close to a double at the spike. Coinbase, Kraken, and other US platforms relisted XRP within days.
Then the rally faded. With the SEC signaling an appeal and the broader market soft, XRP drifted back to approximately $0.46 by October 2023, about 50% below the spike high, and did not exceed $0.93 again until November 2024, approximately 16 months later.
2024 to 2025: Election, ETFs, and a New High
The November 5, 2024 US election flipped regulatory expectations, and XRP repriced faster than almost any major asset: from approximately $0.51 on election day to approximately $3.40 by mid January 2025, a more than sixfold move in about ten weeks. The SEC walked away from its appeal in 2025, the case formally ended that August, and the first US spot XRP ETFs began trading in November 2025.
The era still included a major correction. XRP fell approximately 53%, from $3.40 to approximately $1.61 by April 7, 2025, in the tariff-driven selloff, then recovered to a new record of approximately $3.65 on July 18, 2025. That reclaim took approximately 6 months: the fastest full recovery from a 50%+ drawdown in XRP's history.
October 2025: The Largest Liquidation Day on Record
On October 10, 2025, a tariff headline triggered approximately $19 billion of leveraged crypto liquidations in 24 hours, the largest single-day cascade on record. XRP fell from approximately $2.80 to an intraday low near $1.77 on major venues, with far lower wicks on some order books. Measured from the July 2025 record, the late-2025 lows put XRP down approximately 50%.
At the time of writing, that recovery clock is still running: XRP has not yet reclaimed its July 2025 high. Whether this episode resolves like a shock crash (months) or a cycle unwind (years) is the open question of 2026.
What the Dataset Says
Average maximum drawdown: approximately 69%. Median: approximately 64%. A typical major XRP crash does not shave 20 or 30% off the price; it removes roughly two thirds of it. Eight major drawdowns between December 2013 and October 2025 also works out to one roughly every 18 months.
Completed recoveries averaged approximately 29 months, with a median of about 16, but the average hides the real pattern: the dataset splits cleanly into two species. Event-driven shock crashes (COVID, the SEC filing, the Q1 2025 correction) recovered in approximately 5 months on average. Full cycle unwinds (2014, 2018, 2021 to 2022, the post-Torres fade) took approximately 48 months on average, nearly ten times longer. The variable that matters is not how far XRP fell, but what kind of decline it was: forced selling reverses quickly, deflating bubbles do not.
One honest caveat belongs next to every recovery statistic: eight recoveries in a row is data about the past, not a law about the future. Nothing guarantees the next drawdown resolves the way the last eight did.
The Holder Math: What Yield Changes in a Drawdown, and What It Does Not
Here is the part of drawdown history that rarely gets quantified. The 2021 to 2024 round trip took approximately 44 months. A holder who kept 10,000 XRP idle on an exchange through that entire trip ended exactly where they started: 10,000 XRP, and 0% earned. A holder earning yield paid in XRP accumulated through the same period. At 4% APY compounding, 10,000 XRP becomes approximately 11,500 XRP over 44 months. At 15%, it becomes approximately 16,700 XRP: roughly 67% more XRP at the exact moment the old peak was reclaimed, and therefore roughly 67% more dollar value at the same milestone price.
Two things must be said plainly. First, yield denominated in XRP does nothing to protect dollar value during the fall: a 93% drawdown is a 93% drawdown whether or not your XRP count is growing. Second, earning yield means using a platform, which introduces counterparty risk that idle self-custodied XRP does not have. What yield changes is one specific variable, the size of your position when recovery arrives, and XRP's completed recoveries have so far arrived on a median timeline of about 16 months. You can model your own numbers with the XRP yield calculator, compare approaches in our guide to earning yield on XRP, and review how custody works on our security page.
Will XRP Crash Again?
Almost certainly, at some point, and nobody can tell you when. An asset that has produced eight drawdowns of roughly 50% or more in thirteen years, about one every 18 months, should be expected to produce more. That is not a prediction of any specific crash; it is the base rate. The practical conclusion is not to time it (the July 2023 ruling and the October 2025 cascade both moved the price by double-digit percentages within hours, faster than anyone repositions) but to size XRP holdings so that a roughly 65% drawdown, the historical average, is survivable without forced selling.
The Bottom Line
XRP's history in one paragraph: the average major crash cut approximately 69% off the price, the average completed recovery took approximately 29 months, and every drawdown so far has eventually been recovered, though the 2018 top took about seven and a half years and the July 2025 high is still waiting. If you plan to hold through that kind of volatility anyway, the one variable you control is whether your XRP is working while you wait. Idle on an exchange, it earns 0% through every cycle. XORA pays up to 22% APY value (15% native XRP yield, treasury-subsidised during a disclosed bootstrap, plus estimated XORA reward value), accruing daily with no lock-up, so the XRP you hold through the next drawdown compounds instead of sitting still. Crypto is volatile and yield involves platform risk: never deposit more than you can afford to lose. Open Xora and put your XRP to work.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was XRP's biggest crash?
The January 2018 collapse. XRP fell from an all-time high of approximately $3.84 (about $3.40 on some data feeds) to roughly $0.25 later in 2018, a drawdown of about 93%, and the slide ultimately extended to approximately $0.11 in March 2020, roughly 97% below the peak. It remains the deepest and longest-lasting crash in XRP's history.
How long did XRP take to recover its January 2018 high?
Approximately seven and a half years. Measured on CoinGecko's price series, XRP did not set a new record until it reached approximately $3.65 on July 18, 2025, about 90 months after the January 2018 peak. Measured against CoinMarketCap's higher $3.84 print from 2018, that old high has arguably never been decisively reclaimed. It is the longest recovery in XRP's history.
What happened to XRP's price when the SEC sued Ripple?
XRP fell from approximately $0.55 to below $0.20 within about a week of the SEC filing suit on December 22, 2020, a drop of roughly 60 to 65%, and most major US exchanges suspended or delisted XRP trading. The recovery was unusually fast: XRP reclaimed pre-lawsuit levels by February 2021, about two months later, and reached approximately $1.96 by April 2021.
How much does XRP usually fall in a major crash?
Across the eight major drawdowns from 2013 to 2026, the average peak-to-trough decline is approximately 69% and the median is approximately 64%, with a range from roughly 50% to 95%. Completed recoveries took about 29 months on average: event-driven shock crashes healed in around 2 to 8 months, while full cycle unwinds took roughly 40 to 90 months.
Will XRP crash again?
Nobody knows when, but history says drawdowns are normal: XRP has had eight declines of roughly 50% or more in thirteen years, about one every 18 months on average. Treat major volatility as an expected feature of holding XRP rather than a surprise, size positions so a roughly 65% drawdown is survivable, and be skeptical of anyone claiming to time the next one. Past recoveries do not guarantee future ones.