XRP Price Prediction: Why the $3.37 Level is KeyXRP / US DollarCOINBASE:XRPUSDfintechzoomUntil early July, the price of Ripple was range-bound without clear momentum, drifting aimlessly like a sailboat in calm seas. However, everything changed at the beginning of July. A series of higher highs and higher lows has indicated bullish market sentiment, forming a channel where the upper boundary indicates overbought conditions and the lower boundary signals oversold territory. The channel's median, where the price sometimes consolidates, represents a short-term balance point reflecting Ripple's perceived intrinsic value. The upward slope of the median is a positive sign for the coin, but buying right here and now doesn't guarantee a profit. How might events unfold from here? The base case scenario is a continuation of the upward momentum within this highly volatile ascending channel. And right now, the price is in a very interesting position—just below the $3.37 level. This is a key resistance, and the next two facts confirm why this is the case: As soon as the price rose above $3.37 in mid-July, we saw a sharp spike in volume. The candle's body shrank, and the close was far from the highs. This indicates that "smart money" was taking profits by selling their previously bought coins to the late-arriving "FOMO" crowd. The fact that the price failed to continue its ascent in the following days confirms this underlying selling pressure. On July 23rd, the price dropped on a wide bearish candle with huge volume. This was direct market selling. There is no more eloquent evidence of weakness than this. Together, these two facts suggest that in July, "smart money" was confident that $3.37 was too high a price for Ripple. But that doesn't mean they hold the same opinion in August. The relatively wide bullish candle on August 12th, with increasing volume and a strong close, gives hope to the bulls. This is evidence of demand activation, and how serious this demand is will be revealed by the test of strength it faces at the $3.37 level. If we see weak price action here (e.g., bearish engulfing patterns or upthrusts), it would be an argument that "smart money" is still ready to offload their coins. On the other hand, a breakout to the upside on increasing volume would be a clear sign of demand strength. As of August 13th, the situation looks slightly more bearish in my opinion, as if the buyers' enthusiasm is waning and they are growing timid as they approach this key level. In an optimistic scenario, this level would flip its role to support; a bullish news catalyst would be very helpful for this to happen. For now, it seems to me that the bulls are not ready for an aggressive assault. Therefore, I am cautiously setting a neutral-to-bearish forecast for the next month, based on this volume analysis. However, I am ready to change my opinion quickly if the market proves me wrong.