How XRP reacted to the beginning of a bear market and what to expect.

In the crypto sector, pessimistic sentiments have been prevailing lately, digital assets are showing far from the best results, and many analysts have started talking about the start of a bear market, in particular, experts from CryptoQuant. How does XRP react to these conditions and what to expect next?
XRP was one of the leaders in the bullish trend in the cryptocurrency market that started in November last year. However, recently its upward trajectory seems to have halted.
As of the time of writing, XRP was trading at $2.63, which represents an increase of 24.44% since the beginning of the year (YTD).
The digital asset's momentum slowed significantly at the beginning of February due to the tariffs imposed by President Trump, after which XRP fell below the key level of $3, which now acts as support. Historically, February has been one of the worst months for XRP profitability. For comparison: at the end of January, the asset was trading at $3.03, and since then it has lost 13.2%.
Despite this setback, there are several positive factors. The market is anticipating a relatively quick resolution of Ripple Labs' years-long legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) following the resignation of its former chairman Gary Gensler.
In addition, CoinShares recently filed an application to create an exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on XRP for trading on the NASDAQ exchange, which could be an important step towards broader cryptocurrency adoption.
The latest positive signal is the activity of XRP whales holding over 1,000,000 tokens. They are not selling assets, but instead accumulating them.