XRP Ledger Upgrade and African Expansion Converge as Whales Tighten Hold on 74% of Supply

XRP whales control 74% of supply; ledger version 3.2.0 rebrands to xrpld, cuts RAM usage 30-40%. Ripple partners with Flutterwave. Spot ETFs see six weeks of inflows.

XRP is navigating a complex landscape where technical progress, geopolitical tailwinds, and institutional accumulation are reshaping its market dynamics. On-chain data from Santiment reveals that wallets holding at least one million XRP now control 74.1% of the circulating supply — roughly 45.98 billion tokens. Over the past six months, these large holders have added another 1.53 billion XRP to their coffers, a pattern that typically sees retail investors selling into dips while institutional players buy.

The price action reflects this tug-of-war. XRP touched an intraday high of $1.28 on June 16 — a 13% surge within hours — following reports of a US-Iran peace agreement that stoked risk appetite across crypto markets. But the rally stalled at resistance near $1.30, triggering profit-taking that pulled the token back to $1.24. That leaves it roughly 8% below its 50-day moving average of $1.32 and still nursing a year-to-date loss of about 36%. Analysts point to support at $1.20 and $1.19 as critical levels for the uptrend to hold.

Under the hood, the XRP Ledger received a significant upgrade on June 15 with the release of version 3.2.0. The most symbolic change: the core server software has been renamed from “rippled” to “xrpld” (XRP Ledger Daemon), a move the community interprets as a deliberate effort to distance the network’s identity from Ripple Inc. and reduce regulatory ambiguity. More tangibly, the upgrade slashes RAM consumption by 30% to 40% and introduces the “fixCleanup3_2_0” amendment, which patches security vulnerabilities in single-asset vaults, decentralized exchanges, and lending protocols. Node operators and validators must migrate to the new version to remain in sync.

The network’s capacity is also expanding. On June 16, the XRP Ledger processed nearly 770,000 transactions, of which roughly 427,000 were successful payments. With average throughput now at 23 transactions per second, the system is closing in on the milestone of one million daily transactions. That scalability push gains fresh relevance as Ripple deepens its ties with Africa’s financial infrastructure.

The crypto firm has joined a Series E funding round for Flutterwave, the African fintech valued at $3.2 billion. The partnership will see Flutterwave integrate the XRP Ledger and Ripple’s stablecoin RLUSD into its payment rails, which currently span 35 African countries. By bypassing the slow settlement cycles of correspondent banks, the alliance aims to deliver real-time cross-border payments with predictable pricing for business clients. Ripple’s own stablecoin, RLUSD, has reached a market capitalization of $1.72 billion, with about 82% of the supply hosted on Ethereum and the remainder on the XRP Ledger. BNY Mellon serves as custodian for the reserves.

Institutional demand for XRP exposure continues to build. Spot XRP ETFs have recorded inflows for six consecutive weeks, bringing cumulative net flows since their November 2025 launch to $1.44 billion. In the week ending June 12 alone, $10.68 million entered the products. Meanwhile, the tokenized asset ecosystem on the XRP Ledger has grown to encompass 293 real-world asset projects worth a combined $3.7 billion, ranging from energy-backed commodities to tokenized US Treasury securities.

Regulatory clarity may provide the next catalyst. The CLARITY Act, which would formally classify XRP as a non-security, has passed the Senate Banking Committee and now awaits a full Senate vote. If approved, the bill would remove the legal uncertainty that has dogged the token since the SEC’s enforcement action — a development that could align with the bullish signals already flashing from whale accumulation and institutional flows.