XRP is up 32% this month, but whales are moving billions

XRP is on course for its strongest monthly gain in more than a year after recovering from below $1, even as a fresh pullback and heavy whale activity test the durability of the rally.

CryptoSlate’s data shows the token trading near $1.40 as of press time, down about 5% over the past 24 hours, after climbing as high as $1.70 during last week’s broader crypto market surge.

This price performance contrasts with the fact that XRP is on track for a roughly 32% gain in August, per CryptoRank’s data. This would mark its best monthly performance since July 2025, when it advanced about 35%.

The recovery has been accompanied by stronger demand for US spot exchange-traded funds and rising stablecoin activity on the XRP Ledger.

Large holders, however, have also moved billions of XRP through Binance in recent weeks, creating competing signals over whether whales are accumulating or preparing to sell into the rebound.

ETF inflows accelerate even as XRP retreats

Institutional demand has continued after the initial price breakout, with US spot XRP ETFs recording about $23.87 million in net inflows on Aug. 25.

The haul was the products’ largest daily inflow since May 11, when they attracted $25.8 million, and extended their run of positive flows to nine consecutive trading sessions.

The funds have now pulled in more than $80 million of fresh capital during August, adding another source of demand after XRP spent much of the year under pressure.

The latest inflow took cumulative net subscriptions into US spot XRP funds to about $1.59 billion since launch, while their net assets stood at roughly $1.46 billion at the end of Tuesday’s session.

The persistence of those flows contrasts with earlier periods when ETF demand failed to translate into stronger price performance.

XRP funds had already accumulated more than $1.47 billion of net inflows by late June even as the token slid toward $1, showing that ETF purchases alone have not historically been sufficient to establish a price floor.

This month’s rebound has instead coincided with renewed fund demand and broader activity around XRP and its underlying network.

RLUSD growth adds another source of liquidity on XRPL

Dollar-denominated activity on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) has also accelerated during the recovery, with Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin crossing $2 billion in circulating supply last week.

About $963 million of RLUSD was circulating on XRPL as of Aug. 25, with roughly $1.05 billion on Ethereum, putting nearly half of the stablecoin’s total supply on the XRPL less than two years after its December 2024 launch. Monthly RLUSD transfer volume across the two networks reached about $11.8 billion.

The expansion stands out against a softer backdrop for the broader stablecoin market.

Evernorth, the largest public company holding XRP, said its analysis of ledger data last week showed RLUSD outstanding on XRPL had increased 39% since May 20 to about $934 million. Over roughly the same period, total stablecoin supply across platforms had contracted about 6% from its May peak, representing a decline of approximately $20 billion.

Activity within the XRP Ledger supply has also been substantial. Evernorth said about $450 million of RLUSD was issued on XRPL over the previous 30 days, with roughly the same amount redeemed. Ethereum recorded about $403 million of issuance and $177 million of redemptions over the comparable period.

Those flows point to increased stablecoin turnover on XRPL, though they do not translate directly into XRP purchases. RLUSD can be issued, transferred, and redeemed without creating equivalent demand for the ledger’s native token.

Still, the expansion gives XRP’s latest price recovery a broader network backdrop than price and ETF flows alone, just as large holders have become considerably more active.

Whale flows turn sharply two-way as the rally matures

XRP’s largest holders have moved extraordinary amounts of the token both onto and off Binance during the rebound, complicating attempts to characterize whales as outright buyers or sellers.

In its latest report shared with CryptoSlate, CryptoQuant reported that daily whale inflows to exchanges surged to roughly 460 million XRP during the rally, their highest level since February. The increase placed a large quantity of XRP within reach of the exchange as the token’s price accelerated.

However, more recent CryptoQuant data shows the trend extended beyond a single session. Whale inflows into Binance reached approximately 1.451 billion XRP over 30 days, the highest four-week total in four months, after declining through July and early August.

Exchange deposits can precede selling, but they can also reflect trading, collateral management or portfolio reallocation and do not establish that the transferred XRP was sold.

Meanwhile, the other side of the ledger has become equally pronounced.

Darkfost, CryptoQuant’s analyst, pointed out that large XRP withdrawals from Binance surged to 231 million tokens by Aug. 21, more than four times the level recorded two days earlier and the highest in about six months. At recent prices, the movement was worth more than $330 million.

Large exchange withdrawals can reduce immediately available sell-side supply and are often associated with accumulation or movement into longer-term custody. Without net-flow and wallet-level evidence, however, the simultaneous surge in deposits makes the direction of overall whale positioning less clear.

The scale of the activity shows how rapidly large-holder behavior has changed as XRP recovered from below $1.

ETF investors have continued adding exposure, RLUSD supply on XRPL is approaching $1 billion, and whales are withdrawing unusually large amounts from Binance.

At the same time, the 460 million XRP daily inflow spike and 1.451 billion XRP accumulated deposits show that substantial supply has also been moving toward the exchange.

That two-way positioning leaves XRP approaching the final days of its strongest month since July 2025, with fresh demand still entering the market, but with large holders increasingly active on both sides of the trade.