XRP's Dollar Line Hangs by a Thread as Whale Buying Collides With a 93% ETF Demand Collapse

XRP hovers at $1 as whales buy 380M tokens weekly while ETF inflows crash 93%, signaling a fractured market with uncertain direction.

The token's slide to the psychological $1 threshold has created one of the most fractured markets in recent crypto history: deep-pocketed accumulators are loading up at the same moment institutional money is walking away, while Washington's regulatory calendar keeps slipping.

XRP was changing hands at $1.00 on Friday, a mere 0.8% above Tuesday's 52-week low of $0.9929. The digital asset has shed 46% since the start of the year and sits 70% below its 52-week peak of $3.35. That stark arithmetic has left bulls clinging to a round number that, if broken, could open the door to further downside.

A Tale of Two Investor Bases

The divergence between market participants could hardly be starker. Data tracked by Benzinga shows whales snapped up roughly 72 million tokens worth about $72 million on Thursday alone, with the weekly accumulation tally reaching 380 million XRP. Crypto analyst Ali Martinez has flagged the pattern as a possible precursor to a recovery, questioning whether large holders are quietly positioning for a rally.

Yet the institutional channel tells a very different story. Weekly net inflows into spot XRP ETFs collapsed by 93%, falling from a prior-week peak of $14.86 million to just $1.01 million. Assets under management in these funds have slipped below the $1 billion mark. For context, Bitcoin ETFs drew $754 million over the same stretch, while Ethereum products pulled in $195 million.

The disconnect extends to Ripple's own treasury operations. A wallet linked to the company shifted 50 million XRP — worth around $50.5 million — to an unidentified address on Wednesday, a move that coincided with the ETF slowdown. Grayscale, meanwhile, reportedly offloaded 103 million XRP tokens valued at roughly $180.78 million during the first half of the year.

Wall Street Creeps In Anyway

Despite the weak fund flows, established money managers are quietly building positions. Morgan Stanley's second-quarter 2026 disclosure revealed holdings across multiple XRP ETFs: 6,715 shares of the Franklin XRP ETF, 255 shares of the REX-Osprey XRP ETF, and 67 shares of the Bitwise XRP ETF, alongside 50,540 shares of the SPAC Armada Acquisition Corp II.

Cetera Investment Advisers, which oversees roughly $256 billion in client assets, also disclosed an XRP position without specifying its size. Militia Capital Management's amended filing shows 31,820 shares of the Bitwise XRP ETF.

That institutional nibbling runs counter to the price action but aligns with the network's expansion. The XRP Ledger added nearly 490,000 new accounts in the first half, bringing the total to around 8.4 million. Tokenized real-world assets on the ledger have also grown, boosted by a new tokenized fund from Aviva Investors.

On-chain activity is accelerating too. Active addresses climbed from roughly 23,642 on August 1 to 43,543 — a jump of more than 84% — with August averaging about 35,700 daily active addresses versus 26,400 in July. Whether those numbers reflect genuine market purchases or internal transfers remains difficult to verify.

Washington's Clock Keeps Sliding

The regulatory backdrop remains a persistent overhang. The CLARITY Act, which would provide legal clarity for digital assets, is stalled in the Senate, with a vote now penciled in for September 15 at the earliest — the chamber is also in the middle of a five-week recess.

The SEC added to the uncertainty by abruptly canceling a meeting scheduled for Friday on a potential "Regulation Crypto" framework, with no rescheduled date announced. The postponement has been linked to ongoing negotiations over a section of the CLARITY Act. The CFTC, meanwhile, is set to hold its own crypto regulation consultation on August 20, with Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse reportedly slated to attend.

Adding a curious wrinkle: Evernorth, a Ripple-backed company, has tied the share count of its planned Nasdaq merger via SPAC to XRP's closing price on Wednesday — an unusual mechanism that directly links the equity's structure to the token's market performance.

Technicals Point Both Ways

The chart presents a mixed picture. The 14-day Relative Strength Index sits at 34.9, firmly in oversold territory, yet no clear reversal signal has emerged. XRP trades 7.3% below its 50-day moving average of $1.08, which analysts now view as the nearest resistance level.

A sustained break above $1.06 could trigger a move toward the $1.35 to $1.64 range, according to market observers. Conversely, a slide beneath the $1 support could expose targets of $0.98 to $0.93, with further downside pressure potentially reaching $0.80.

Standard Chartered's Geoffrey Kendrick has cut his year-end target from $8 to $2.80, though his longer-term outlook remains constructive: $7 by 2027 and $28 by 2030. Polymarket bettors are less convinced about the near term, assigning XRP just a 6% probability of reaching its all-time high of $3.84 before year-end.

For now, the $1 line holds — but the forces pulling at it from opposite directions show no signs of converging.