Altcoin investors who bought XRP 12 months ago are currently much better off with their Ripple bags. This asset has traded up over 330% year-to-date to start May, and that’s why it could rise even further.

XRP buyers have money

Even cryptocurrency traders who bought XRP on New Year's Eve, right before the peak of the cryptocurrency rally in January, have also seen an increase of about 5% at the start of the month.

However, Ripple's leading payment coin did not perform as well as Bitcoin during the April recovery. As May began, XRP rose 4% in a month while BTC increased 13.5%.

However, XRP did not perform as poorly as Ethereum in April, its biggest competitor, with ETH dropping about 3% in that month's trading. Here are four new signals for May indicating that Ripple's price might be on the rise.

1. Inverse head and shoulders bullish pattern for XRP

Ripple has a strong bullish chart displayed in the price chart for April. This means buyers could receive a quick boost for their exchange rates overnight.

Famous crypto chart analyst Ali Martinez wrote in a post on April 28 that XRP's price "appears to be breaking out of the inverse head and shoulders pattern."

Ali Charts, when using X, has identified the potential bullish target range for Ripple's price to be between $2.70 and $2.90. This figure could increase by more than 30% compared to early May.

Although this may seem astounding by stock market standards, this performance is not unusual for many altcoins like XRP.

2. Eric Trump criticizes SWIFT, banks 'could become extinct'

The cryptocurrency-friendly Republican group has just energized the Ripple community with recent comments from President Donald Trump's son, Eric Trump.

In an interview with Dan Murphy of CNBC in the UAE, young Trump strongly criticized the traditional financial system.

He analyzed the global SWIFT payment system and realistically stated that banks 'could become extinct' within just a few years due to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and XRP.

"SWIFT is a real disaster. Not a week goes by that I don't try to send a wire on Friday afternoon or receive one on Friday afternoon, and you worry if you will hit the 4 PM closing time, when you might not see any money you are supposed to receive in the normal business process for another 72 hours."

SWIFT is likely the biggest competitor to Ripple in the market share for its XRP tokens. If Ripple can capture just a small portion of the trillion-dollar volume of the old system, the trading market is likely to reward its payment coin.

3. XRP futures ETF approved, what's next for Spot?

In the last week of April, Bloomberg's senior ETF analyst, Eric Balchunas, posted an update on Bloomberg Intelligence's odds that the SEC would approve several different cryptocurrency ETF applications this year. He stated that there is a "high likelihood" that all applications will occur in 2025.

From Bloomberg's perspective, the approval rate for XRP has risen to 85% in the latest SEC ETF approval forecast. The increasing momentum towards trading in Wall Street's managed funds is a bullish driver for XRP's price.

When Bitcoin was activated on a range of ETFs in January 2024, its price surged for several months to reach new all-time highs. Therefore, institutional adoption at this scale is particularly exciting for the capital market.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is targeting June 17 for the next steps. Therefore, the market will closely monitor potential news developments regarding XRP at that time.

There may be a new direction or different timeline for approving a series of XRP ETF products that could provide new information about current market pricing.

Meanwhile, two issuers have received SEC approval to launch futures XRP ETFs in April. This could be a test of Wall Street's demand for new XRP ETFs once they get the green light.

4. XRP moving average 'Strong Buy' at the beginning of May

Not only technical chart signals, but favorable political winds and regulatory approval support Ripple's bullish outlook in May. There are also technical signals from the market price chart.

According to TradingView data, XRP is a Strong Buy over a one-month period based on all its moving averages. The exponential and simple moving averages for XRP over periods of 10, 20, 30, 50, 100, and 200 days all recommend 'Buy' by the end of the week.

Meanwhile, this is what a $1,000 investment in XRP in 2018 would be worth at the present time.