In an analysis shared via X and YouTube, crypto analyst Matt “The Great Mattsby” Hughes highlighted what could be a historic move for the XRP price, based on the Bollinger Bands indicator. Hughes points to an impending squeeze in XRP’s monthly Bollinger Bands, suggesting a potential spike similar to previous rallies where the cryptocurrency saw massive gains.

Hughes explained via X: “XRP has one of the tightest monthly Bollinger Band squeezes in its history and in all of crypto right now. The last time it squeezed like that, it shot up 60,000%.” In a YouTube video, the crypto analyst went into more detail, explaining how the XRP price has behaved in the past when the Bollinger Bands have been this tight.

XRP Could Skyrocket To $250

The first instance, according to Hughes, occurred between September 2016 and March 2017. During this period, the XRP price consolidated for several months, causing the Bollinger Bands to tighten dramatically. After this period of consolidation, the XRP price skyrocketed, achieving gains that Hughes estimates to be around 60,000%.

The second time was from December 2020 to April 2021. In this case, XRP rose by around 1,000%. “So it was much less than this period here and simply because it looks like it wasn’t as tight as it was right here [the first time], we can see it was much tighter during the first time,” Hughes explained.

This is the third time. Notably, “is the tightest it has ever been, even tighter than the first time, which suggests that it should explode much higher than previous cycles,” he said.

The Bollinger Bands are a technical analysis tool defined by a set of trendlines two standard deviations (positive and negative) away from a simple moving average (SMA) of a security’s price, but can be adjusted to suit the user’s preferences. A narrowing of these bands typically indicates low volatility with the potential for a major bullish or bearish price movement once the bands begin to widen again.

Hughes also examines the duration from the all-time high to the current price, noting that 2,373 days have elapsed. This long period of relative inactivity in price growth, combined with the extreme tightness of the Bollinger Bands, forms the basis of his prediction of an imminent significant move higher.

“It’s the tightest in its history as well so that just kind of proves to me that there is going to be a move sometime in the near future. I’m not sure when but sometime, we can see that this is looking more and more like it wants to break out,” Hughes remarked.

In addition to the technical perspective, he also discussed XRP’s price performance relative to its 20-month moving average. He notes that, similar to previous patterns, XRP has spent a considerable amount of time below this moving average prior to significant rallies.

In both previous instances, XRP’s breakout was preceded by a period below this moving average, followed by a breakout that began after testing the bottom of the Bollinger Band. Notably, the price of XRP hasn’t yet tested the bottom of the Bollinger band. Therefore, Hughes speculates about a potential price drop as a “final flush out”, possibly down to the $0.30 area before a potential breakout.

Such a move would be in line with previous cycles where a test of the lower Bollinger Band has led to strong rallies. “So there is a possibility that the price could come down to test it. Maybe one last flush out maybe down into the $0.30s, we don’t know but if that’s the case then that’s just more confluence of the previous cycles that price can still just break out,” he concluded.

By the way, if history were to repeat itself and XRP were to increase by 62,000%, it would reach a price of $250.

At press time, XRP traded at $0.44574.