XRP surged 40% over a five-day period, sparking debate among traders about whether the move signals a short squeeze or a broader market expansion.

Historical Precedents and Price Targets

Market commentator Crypto Patel argued that such a move is not unprecedented, citing past rallies where prices seemed unreachable before achieving them. Patel highlighted two specific instances where XRP experienced rapid appreciation:

• In 2017, the asset moved from $0.006 to over $3.
• In November 2024, it ran from $0.50 to $2.60 within 30 days.

He suggested that the current accumulation zone between $0.60 and $1, combined with low fees, fast transactions, and real-world payment adoption, could set up a similar path toward $10 to $20.

Analyst Cryptoinsightuk described recent levels as one of the strongest accumulation opportunities he had seen in years but questioned whether the move has enough underlying strength to develop into a sustained trend. He pointed to expanding global money supply, unconventional monetary policy, and geopolitical tensions as potential ingredients for a major repricing, arguing that greater liquidity alone could drive substantially higher prices even if crypto’s utility phase does not arrive yet.

Institutional Interest and ETF Flows

Analyst Rednirav noted significant institutional activity, particularly from Goldman Sachs. The firm had completely exited its XRP ETF position last quarter but reloaded aggressively in Q2 2026. Goldman Sachs is now the number one XRP ETF holder, with $86.5 million across Bitwise, Franklin Templeton, Grayscale, Canary, and 21Shares products.

Other major financial institutions, including JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America, also disclosed XRP ETF positions in Q2.

Spot XRP ETFs recorded strong inflows, pulling in $13.2 million on Thursday alone, according to SoSoValue. This pushed total assets under management to $1.17 billion and cumulative inflows above $1.53 billion. Weekly inflows reached $21.40 million with one session remaining, marking the first time weekly inflows have crossed $20 million since the week ending June 26.

However, institutional demand had weakened before the latest rally. Weekly net inflows into U.S. spot XRP funds plunged 93% to just $1.01 million for the week ending Aug. 8.

On-Chain Activity and Anomalies

Santiment’s Aug. 20 weekly anomaly report highlighted an unusual convergence in XRP activity. XRP was the only cryptocurrency among Polygon, OK, and Polkadot to trigger three separate signals: social dominance spike, project in trends, and old coins moved. All three converged on Aug. 17.

XRP’s trend score surged to 293.64, more than double Bitcoin’s 143.61 peak for the week. Social dominance also spiked while sentiment dropped to -1.85, the most negative reading among the assets.

More notably, roughly 1.1% of XRP’s circulating supply moved after remaining untouched for an average of about 519 days. Despite the large dormant-token movement, XRP exchange volume stood at $928.9 million, below its recent range of roughly $1 billion to $1.6 billion. Santiment said the lack of abnormal exchange volume suggests the old coins were more likely transferred between wallets than immediately sold.

Ripple’s New Credit Fund Initiative

Ripple launched a new institutional credit fund on the XRP Ledger, backed by lending platform Clearpool and credit manager Cicada Partners. The fund aims to lend Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin directly to fintech and payments companies.

Cicada manages credit risk, while Clearpool builds the lending infrastructure. Ripple participates as a limited partner on the same terms as other investors. Borrowers receive and repay in RLUSD, creating direct demand for the stablecoin and moving institutional lending onto the XRPL. The infrastructure is currently being tested on a development network before going live on mainnet.

XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) rose 33% from $1 to a high of $1.32 on Thursday, driven by whale accumulation and rising transaction activity on the XRP Ledger.

The surge followed Bitcoin’s rally to $72,000. A pseudonymous market commentator noted this was XRP’s biggest 48-hour gain since March 2025.

ETF Demand vs Supply

U.S. spot XRP exchange-traded products absorbed only 14.8% of the increase in circulating supply during the first half of 2026. These products were net sellers in two of the six months.

May showed stronger demand, with ETPs absorbing more than half of newly circulating supply, according to 21Shares’ H1 2026 earnings report. At an annualized pace of roughly $588 million, TP demand covers only about one-seventh of annual net XRP supply.

What the Numbers Show

The data reveals a significant divergence between network usage and fee generation. While the XRP Ledger settled $159.9 billion in transaction volume in H1 2026, revenue collapsed 81.6% year-over-year to $1.18 million from $6.43 million. This indicates that high transaction volumes are not translating into proportional fee income for the protocol.

Ledger Metrics

Only about 10.6% of H1 revenue benefited XRP holders through token burns. Meanwhile, the stablecoin base expanded 1,131% year-over-year.

Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin reached $1.56 billion in total supply as of June 30, with 52% residing on XRPL compared to roughly 10% a year earlier. This expansion aims to support decentralized finance and tokenized real-world assets.