XRP Slips Below $1.50 as Emergency Ledger Patch Meets Escrow and ETF Crosscurrents

XRP slipped 3.1% to $1.48 after a failed run at $1.54–$1.60, with whale accumulation and $1.79B in ETF inflows cushioning the pullback.

XRP bulls had little to celebrate as the new trading week opened. The token changed hands at $1.48 on Monday, down 3.1% on the day, surrendering the psychologically important $1.50 threshold after a failed run at the $1.54–$1.60 resistance band. The retreat caps a stretch in which the asset had still managed to gain 7.8% over the prior seven days, leaving it roughly 14% above its 50-day moving average of $1.33.

Two distinct forces are pulling at the price. On one side sit profit-takers and security jitters; on the other, deep-pocketed accumulators and steady ETF demand that have so far kept a sharper sell-off at bay.

Stolen Funds and a Broken Breakout

The immediate trigger for the pullback was a wave of profit-taking after repeated rejections near $1.60, which flushed out leveraged long positions. Sentiment took a further hit from the movement of funds tied to a security breach at the exchange Bitget. According to CoinDesk, roughly 54 million XRP — worth about $83 million — was withdrawn from attacker-controlled accounts over the weekend. Because the XRP Ledger is decentralized, Ripple cannot unilaterally freeze native holdings, a limitation that amplified unease among traders.

Adding to the caution is the calendar. On October 1, Ripple's customary escrow release of up to 1 billion XRP comes due, though a substantial portion is typically re-locked.

A Quiet Emergency Patch

Beneath the price action, developers were busy. The XRP Ledger Foundation and RippleX engineers rolled out version xrpld v3.4.1 on Friday, an unscheduled update aimed at closing protocol-level vulnerabilities. At its core is the fixBatchV1_2 amendment, which ensures that malformed internal transactions within bundles are reliably rejected.

Node operators and validators were urged to install the new software promptly to avoid being stranded by unsupported network rules. Source code publication is being deliberately delayed to deny would-be attackers a window to exploit the fix. Media reports noted that validator approval had briefly dipped below the required 80% threshold.

The feature allows up to eight transactions to be processed as a bundle — either all confirmed together or all failing as a unit. RippleX told CoinDesk that asset managers and other commercial projects are already preparing to use the settlement mechanism.

Whales and ETFs Absorb the Selling

Offsetting the near-term drag, on-chain data points to accumulation by large holders. Santiment found that wallets holding more than $1 million expanded their reserves by over 470 million units in the five days through September 24. Whale Alert separately flagged a transfer of nearly 578 million XRP from the exchange Uphold to an external address on Saturday.

Regulated US spot ETFs continue to draw solid demand as well. Cumulative net inflows into these products have reached about $1.79 billion, led by offerings from Bitwise and Franklin Templeton. September alone brought in roughly $80 million, with close to $53 million arriving across the September 22–24 window. That steady bid has cushioned the current selling pressure and, so far, prevented a more dramatic slide into lower territory.

Chart Watch and a Packed October

From a technical standpoint, XRP sits at a crossroads. It remains above its 50-day average, yet the loss of the round $1.50 level has clouded the short-term picture. Analyst Peter Brandt recently pointed to the outlines of an inverse head-and-shoulders pattern with a neckline running through the $1.50–$1.60 zone — but a sustained break higher remains the prerequisite for any broader recovery.

Fundamental catalysts loom in the coming weeks. On October 3, the XRP Seoul event will bring together senior executives including Ripple President Monica Long with representatives of South Korean financial firms. Ledger developers, meanwhile, are targeting October 9 for activation of the batch upgrade, following the earlier release of an updated protocol version aimed at improving stability.

Corporate news adds another marker: on Wednesday, shareholders of Evernorth and Armada Acquisition Corp. II will vote on their planned merger, a deal that if completed would pave the way for a Nasdaq listing under the ticker XRPN.