XRP price plunged below the critical $3 threshold early Friday as the broader cryptocurrency market reacted sharply to U.S. President Donald Trump’s newly imposed tariffs on multiple countries, sparking fears of escalating global economic tensions. The sell-off, which also rattled equities, combined macroeconomic uncertainty with profit-taking after XRP’s recent highs. In particular, the token fell from an intraday peak of $3.16 to a low of $2.92, wiping out more than $13 billion in market value as its capitalization dropped from $186.6 billion to $173.3 billion in just hours. The breach of the $3 mark was a technically significant event. Psychological levels like $3 tend to act as magnets for liquidity. Once broken, they can accelerate momentum-driven selling, especially in a macro-driven sell-off like this. 24 hour volume ($8.1 billion up nearly 24%) shows that the sell-off wasn’t a quiet drift, it was high-volume, panic-driven trading, confirming real conviction behind the move. Ripple institutional developments Still, the bearish pressure comes against the backdrop of major institutional developments. As reported earlier this today, BlackRock’s Director of Digital Assets, Maxwell Stein, is set to speak at Ripple’s SWELL 2025 conference in London, fueling speculation that the asset manager could explore an XRP exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the future. This institutional interest has some traders seeing the current pullback as a potential buying opportunity if Ripple’s regulatory and partnership milestones continue to align. For now, the key question is whether XRP can reclaim the $3 level and stabilize ahead of Ripple’s upcoming token unlock and the October SWELL event, which could act as catalysts for renewed bullish momentum.