XRP's Institutional Pipeline Keeps Flowing Even as the Token Catches Its Breath

XRP ETFs attract steady capital despite price dip; Goldman Sachs becomes top institutional holder, while Ripple upgrades ledger.

The most telling signal in XRP's market right now isn't the price chart — it's the steady drip of capital into US-listed spot exchange-traded funds. While the token eased to $1.40 on Thursday, giving back 2.4 percent after last week's 27 percent surge, the funds that track it logged their ninth consecutive day of net inflows on Wednesday, taking in $23.87 million.

That resilience in the face of profit-taking tells a story that day traders might miss. The seven US funds now collectively manage roughly $2 billion in assets, with cumulative inflows of about $1.55 billion since their November 2025 launch. August has been particularly strong: inflows for the month stand at $56.86 million, more than double July's $27.29 million, and trading volume has hit approximately $508 million — the highest monthly figure since January.

The turnaround wasn't immediate, though. For seven of the first eleven trading days of August, the products attracted virtually no new capital. The tide turned on August 18 with $5.81 million, followed by $13.24 million on August 20 — the biggest daily intake since late June — and then $18.38 million on August 21, the largest single-day haul in three months.

Wall Street's Biggest XRP Holder Emerges

The ETF flows are only half the institutional story. Goldman Sachs' 13F filing for the second quarter revealed XRP ETF positions valued at $113.7 million, spread across five spot funds from Bitwise, Franklin Templeton, Grayscale, and 21Shares. That marks a 31 percent increase from the previous reporting period and makes the bank the largest known institutional holder of US XRP ETF shares. ARK Invest has also thrown its weight behind the asset, with XRP carrying roughly a 20 percent weighting in its CoinDesk-20 ETF — the fund's third-largest position.

The capital inflows arrive as XRP recovers from its cycle low near $0.99. The rally that began roughly two weeks ago was sparked by Federal Reserve policy signals and a broader crypto market uptick that triggered extensive short liquidations, leaving the token up 36.0 percent from that base. The move has since cooled: XRP traded around $1.43 on Tuesday after its relative strength index hit an overbought reading of 87. The indicator now sits at 69.3 — elevated but no longer in extreme territory. The token trades 25 percent above its 50-day average of $1.12, though it remains 56 percent below its 52-week high of $3.18.

The Ledger Gets Its Institutional Upgrade

Underneath the price action, Ripple continues to build out the XRP Ledger's capabilities for exactly the kind of players now accumulating the token. Updated developer libraries for xrpl.js and xrpl-py were released Wednesday, simplifying application development on the network. That follows the XRPL v3.3.0 upgrade that went live on August 8, which introduced five new features: confidential token balances via zero-knowledge proofs, atomic multi-transactions, delegatable permissions, enterprise-covered transaction fees, and retroactively adjustable tokens. Ripple's product manager Julian Berridi detailed the library updates, which include support for the new ledger version's "Confidential Transfers" — a function that encrypts balances and payment amounts for institutional users.

Ripple president Monica Long described the upgrade phase in early August as a "real light-switch moment" for institutional adoption, arguing that banks are moving beyond pilot projects into production use. The South Korean Jeonbuk Bank offers a concrete example, becoming the country's first regional lender to deploy Ripple Payments for cross-border transactions.

Supply Dynamics Cut Both Ways

The supply side remains a structural counterweight to all this demand. Ripple's monthly escrow release on August 1 unlocked 1 billion XRP, with 700 million promptly re-locked — leaving a net 300 million tokens entering circulation. That recurring dilution runs against ETF-driven demand, which absorbs an estimated 109 million tokens monthly. The next scheduled release arrives September 1, just ahead of a September 15 Senate vote on the CLARITY Act. Should the legislation pass, Ripple might stop returning tokens to escrow and let the full monthly amount circulate, potentially to bolster liquidity for its RLUSD stablecoin.

There are signs the selling pressure from shorter-term holders is abating, however. The amount of XRP held on exchanges has fallen to a seven-year low of 1.6 billion tokens — half the level seen in October 2025.

The picture that emerges is of a market in two gears. Short-term traders are taking profits after a blistering week, while the structural forces — ETF inflows, balance-sheet accumulation by major banks, and a network being retooled for institutional workflows — continue to point in the same direction.