XRP's Steep Slide Overshadows Record RLUSD Growth and Active Address Surge

XRP near $1.00 low after $41M liquidation wipeout, but on-chain activity surges 72%, institutional ETF inflows top $1B, and Ripple advances EU regulatory license for payments.

Ripple's network is buzzing with activity, yet its native token is tanking. XRP changed hands near $1.05 on Thursday, dangerously close to its 52-week low of $1.01, after a wave of leveraged position liquidations wiped out roughly $41 million in long bets. The forced closures erased nearly all overheated bullish wagers, accelerating a decline that has now erased 44% of the token's value since the start of the year.

The divergence between on-chain health and price action is stark. Daily active addresses on the XRP Ledger surged 72% to 39,500, while the stablecoin RLUSD reached a supply of 810 million tokens on Ripple's own blockchain. That milestone pushed RLUSD past the 760 million circulating on Ethereum — a notable shift in where liquidity is being deployed. Meanwhile, open interest in XRP futures clawed back above the $1 billion mark, signaling that traders are not entirely abandoning the asset.

Institutional investors, however, appear to be taking a different view from the retail crowd that got burned in the liquidation event. US spot-based XRP ETFs have logged net inflows for seven consecutive weeks, with cumulative capital topping $1 billion. The most recent day saw $15.6 million flow into these funds, with Bitwise capturing the lion's share at $11.6 million.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse is looking well beyond daily price swings. He has set his sights on the institutional payments market, which he estimates handles $16 trillion in annual transaction volume. Digital assets currently account for virtually none of that flow, and Garlinghouse aims to position XRP as the settlement layer for traditional finance infrastructure. The company has already begun linking networks that together process that colossal $16 trillion figure.

Regulatory progress is supporting that vision. Late June, Ripple secured a provisional CASP (Crypto Asset Service Provider) license from Luxembourg's CSSF under the European Union's MiCA framework, allowing the firm to prepare custody and payment services across the bloc. Simultaneously, the European Central Bank is expanding its TIPS real-time settlement system, and Ripple views XRP as a potential bridge currency for transactions outside the eurozone.

On the charts, conditions remain tense. XRP's relative strength index stands at 31.7, deep in oversold territory, and the token is trading roughly 30% below its 200-day moving average. The immediate support zone between $1.04 and $1.06 must hold to prevent a further slide. A break below the psychologically critical $1.00 level would likely invite another wave of selling pressure.

Political catalysts could shift the narrative. The US Senate is expected to vote on the CLARITY Act before its August recess. If passed, the legislation would formally classify XRP as a digital commodity, potentially altering the regulatory landscape and halting the current selloff.

For now, Ripple's infrastructure build-out — a stablecoin that just overtook Ethereum's supply, record network engagement, and a freshly secured European license — provides a solid counterweight to the token's technical distress. The question is whether that fundamental strength can stabilize XRP before it loses the $1 threshold.