XRP Pauses Below $1.60 as Ledger Upgrade Slips and Tokenized Treasury Rails Open

XRP eased to $1.54 after hitting selling pressure at $1.60, while the BatchV1_1 activation window reset and BUIDL and VBILL holders gained RLUSD redemptions.

XRP is taking a breather. The token changed hands at $1.54 on Sunday, down 1.8% on the day, after Friday's rebound ran into a wall of selling interest at the $1.60 threshold. A separate reading of the session put the decline at 3.1% to $1.52, with leveraged long positions getting flushed out alongside the pullback.

Either way, the retreat marks a pause rather than a reversal. Trading activity had picked up noticeably in the run-up, and market participants are now booking selective profits after the prior advance. Bitcoin and Ether both managed gains during Sunday trading, leaving XRP briefly out of step with the broader market's friendlier tone. No company-specific or regulatory headlines emerged to explain the move.

The technical picture remains constructive. XRP continues to trade well above its 50-day moving average of $1.32 — roughly 15% above that level — and holds above its medium-term trend lines, consolidating on a firmer footing above earlier interim lows.

BatchV1_1 Activation Pushed to October 9

On the network side, a planned modernization hit a scheduling snag. Validator support for the BatchV1_1 amendment dipped temporarily, resetting the standard two-week activation window. Assuming the required threshold now holds steady, the earliest possible activation date slides to October 9.

Ripple has framed the upgrade as a significant technical milestone, with asset managers and other commercial projects already preparing to put Batch V1.1 to work. The change lets up to eight transactions be bundled so they either all execute or all fail together — a mechanism designed to underpin complex settlement processes, including the delivery-versus-payment exchange of assets.

Tokenized Treasuries Gain a New Off-Ramp

Fundamentals received a separate boost from progress in tokenized real-world assets. Holders of BlackRock's BUIDL fund and VanEck's VBILL fund can now convert their positions instantly into Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin, giving institutional investors a fresh digital redemption channel. The setup allows yields to stay on-chain and be redeployed into decentralized finance strategies around the clock.

RLUSD is scaling quickly in its own right. Global circulating supply is approaching $2.5 billion, with roughly $1.1 billion of that sitting on the XRP Ledger.

ETF Filings Advance as Spot Funds Draw Fresh Capital

Preparations for specialized products in traditional markets are also moving forward. A mandatory disclosure filing sharpened the details of a planned fund's structure and the trading partners for the token, though it does not yet constitute regulatory approval.

US-listed spot products logged net positive inflows on Friday despite the emerging selling pressure in the token itself, with funds from Bitwise and Franklin Templeton leading the flows. The SEC, meanwhile, published new guidance on Friday covering crypto token structures, including token buybacks and staking. Whether — and to what degree — those rules touch XRP directly was left unresolved.

Ripple's Long Game: Cross-Border Payments

Strategically, attention remains fixed on Ripple's ambitions in cross-border payments. Pantera Capital founder and CEO Dan Morehead told CNBC that the company aims to take ground from SWIFT in the international payments arena, casting the effort as a long-term project rather than an immediate displacement of the bank network. Ripple itself reports payout access across more than 60 markets and processed volume exceeding $100 billion.

For now, the question of whether XRP can clear $1.60 comes down to how quickly the market absorbs the latest round of profit-taking.