Before now, a lot or people do not buy the idea within XRP mostly because of its centralized nature but when the team started making huge partnerships and so on, it brought more attention and recognition to XRP ecosystem, to an extent XRP is a good coin. The reason why XRP hasn't found it easy for a long time now, is the ongoing case with SEC, I thought it was over or closed, but once in a while news flies around or will I say fud, and people will become skeptical again. In fact, once a project gets issues with SEC, people tends to be at bay in order not to get dumped at, but as for XRP it is an already developed platform with a huge market cap therefore will be difficult for it to fade away just like that.
Nevertheless, in my own opinion, XRP is not going anywhere whatsoever case they have with SEC will be solved in one way or the other, however about the price, everything is possible in a bull market and if no fud is channeled towards it again, but yet $3 might take a while to come by.
If XRP and SEC come to an agreement and turn positive, XRP will have further resistance points, instead of becoming useless as you say because even though the crypto market may be favorable, from the moment the SEC came out, people have expressed their alienation against XRP even when the market is still going up. Even recovery has an SEC bomb hanging in their heart while if this bomb is defused, this big boat doesn't just go to $3, once the alienation is gone, there will be a rush of investors