Ripple's Sharpest Decoupling Move Yet: XRP Ledger Gets a New Identity as Whales Hoard 46 Billion Tokens

Whales now control 74% of XRP supply amid accumulation, price drop, and network upgrade to xrpld. Institutional ETF inflows continue as SEC approves new crypto ETF with 11.42% XRP.

The wealth gap on the XRP Ledger has never been starker. Wallets holding at least a million XRP now command 74.1% of the circulating supply — roughly 45.98 billion tokens — according to Santiment data. Over the past six months, these large holders have added another 1.53 billion XRP to their stashes, a pattern that sees retail players selling into dips while institutional addresses scoop up the tokens.

The accumulation coincided with a sharp intraday move on June 16, when XRP sprang 13% to a high of $1.28. The trigger: a reported US–Iran peace deal that lifted risk appetite across crypto markets. But the rally was short-lived. The token settled back to $1.21, still 8% below its 50-day moving average of $1.32 and nursing a year-to-date loss of roughly 36%. Resistance stands firm at $1.30, while support at $1.20 and $1.19 will need to hold to keep the uptrend intact.

A Fork in the Road for the Ledger

The price action unfolded against the backdrop of a major software upgrade. On June 15, the XRP Ledger activated version 3.2.0 — and the most symbolic change was a name swap. The core server software, previously dubbed "rippled," is now "xrpld," short for XRP Ledger Daemon. The rebranding is more than cosmetic: it marks a deliberate effort to distance the ledger’s technology stack from Ripple Inc., the company that originally created it. The move is widely seen as an attempt to sharpen regulatory clarity and underline that the network and the firm are separate entities.

The upgrade delivers concrete performance gains. RAM consumption drops by 30% to 40%, and the default network port shifts from 51235 to 2459. An embedded security patch called "fixCleanup3_2_0" plugs vulnerabilities in the ledger’s single-asset vaults, decentralized exchange, and lending protocols. Node operators and validators must migrate to the new version to stay current.

Institutional Floodgates

While the upgrade tightens the network’s technical profile, institutional demand is pouring in through another channel. XRP-focused exchange-traded products have attracted six consecutive weeks of inflows, pushing cumulative flows since their November 2025 launch to $1.44 billion. In the week ending June 12 alone, $10.68 million entered XRP products — a bright spot in a period when many other crypto ETFs saw outflows.

The SEC added momentum on June 12 by greenlighting the T. Rowe Price Active Crypto ETF, ticker TKNZ, which will trade on the NYSE Arca. XRP accounts for 11.42% of that fund’s weight, trailing only Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Ripple’s stablecoin RLUSD has also crossed a milestone, reaching a market capitalization of roughly $1.63 billion. Some 82% of that supply resides on Ethereum, with the remainder on the XRP Ledger. BNY Mellon serves as the custodian for the reserve assets.

Africa Beckons, Tokenization Booms

Ripple is doubling down on real-world use cases. It has joined a Series E funding round for African fintech Flutterwave, which carries a valuation of around $3.2 billion. The plan: integrate RLUSD and the XRP Ledger into Flutterwave’s payment infrastructure for cross-border transactions across 35 African markets. The deal marks a concrete expansion of Ripple’s presence on a continent where traditional banking infrastructure is thin.

Meanwhile, the ledger’s tokenized-asset ecosystem is flexing its muscles. Real-world assets (RWAs) on the XRPL now total $3.7 billion across 293 projects, up from $2.25 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2026 — a 124% quarterly jump. The roster includes energy-backed commodities and tokenized US Treasury securities, signaling that the XRP Ledger is evolving from a pure payment rail into a broader infrastructure platform.

For now, though, the token itself feels the tug of gravity. Whales are piling in, ETFs are drawing billions, and the network is getting a much-needed overhaul. Yet XRP still trades 36% below where it started the year, a reminder that technical upgrades and institutional flows do not always translate into immediate price recovery.