XRP Holds Near $1.50 as Eleven-Week ETF Streak Meets Escrow Release and Ledger Overhaul

US spot XRP ETFs drew $75.59M in the week ending September 25, an 11th straight weekly inflow, as Bitget's $157M breach and a Thursday escrow unlock draw focus.

Institutional money keeps flowing into XRP even as the broader crypto industry digests one of the more damaging exchange breaches of the year. US spot ETFs tied to the token pulled in $75.59 million in net inflows during the trading week ending September 25, extending an unbroken run of weekly subscriptions to eleven. The aggregate net asset value of those products has now climbed to roughly $1.77 billion.

The token itself is changing hands around $1.49–$1.50, a level that leaves it 9.8% above its 50-day moving average of $1.36 and 17% above its 200-day average of $1.28. Market technicians view the defense of that longer-term trendline as a key marker for preserving the third quarter's upward trajectory.

A $157 Million Heist That Couldn't Be Frozen

The Bitget incident on September 24 laid bare a structural quirk of the network. Attackers made off with 102.9 million XRP, worth about $157.48 million at the time. To cover the shortfall, the exchange is drawing on its user protection fund, which holds more than $464 million.

What the thieves could not do was lock down their haul. Native XRP cannot be frozen at the protocol level — unlike other tokens issued on the XRP Ledger. Neither exchange operators nor Ripple itself possess a mechanism to halt native-token transactions centrally on the blockchain. Forensic work by Bitget alongside security firms Mandiant and SlowMist points to North Korea's Lazarus Group as the suspected perpetrator.

Escrow Mechanics and the Thursday Release

Attention now turns to the monthly escrow unlock scheduled for Thursday, when as much as one billion units are set to be released from the trust account. The recurring process follows a fixed algorithm designed to keep supply management transparent. For holders, the unlock does not automatically translate into a flood of sell pressure. In practice, a substantial share of the freed tokens is swiftly rolled back into fresh lockup periods, meaning only a fraction of the volume ever reaches the open market.

Two Upgrades on the Calendar

Technical work on the network is advancing in parallel. Following the release of an emergency patch on September 25 to address vulnerabilities, two functional enhancements are queued up for activation.

The BatchV1_1 update has secured backing from 30 of the 35 trusted validators and is slated for October 9. It lets users bundle and execute up to eight transactions simultaneously. Both changes are aimed at giving business clients and institutional participants more room to operate. Batching enables simultaneous delivery-versus-payment settlement in tokenized asset trading, while the rights-transfer feature allows companies to grant specific permissions to individual accounts without handing over full control of cryptographic keys.

Stablecoin Growth and a Brazilian Rails Build-Out

Beyond price charts, the ecosystem continues to expand. The network's own stablecoin, RLUSD, reached a market capitalization of $2.49 billion on September 22. In Brazil, custodian CSD BR has integrated the XRP Ledger into the country's national securities infrastructure, with Ripple steering the initiative. The effort initially targets the verification and documentation of fund shares.

Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan attributed the sustained institutional interest to the token's established track record and its practical applications for financial advisors.

Shorts on the Back Foot

Derivatives positioning adds a note of tension to the setup. Industry surveys flag a significant liquidation risk for existing short positions should the price add just a few percentage points. A breakout above the next chart hurdles could therefore trigger forced covering and inject momentum into the advance. To the downside, the zone around recent interim lows remains the line buyers must defend.