XRP Whales Add 470 Million Tokens as Ledger Activity Surges and Batch Upgrade Slips

Wallets holding 1M-10M XRP added over 470M tokens in five days, lifting their stash to 12.80B, as spot ETF inflows and new accounts surged.

Large holders of XRP have been quietly building positions, with wallets controlling between one million and ten million tokens collectively adding more than 470 million units in the five days through last Thursday. That buying lifted the cohort's combined stash from 12.37 billion to 12.80 billion tokens — a signal that deep-pocketed investors are treating recent price strength as a reason to scale up rather than cash out.

The accumulation unfolded against a backdrop of steady demand from the regulated US market. Spot ETFs tied to XRP, including products from Bitwise and Franklin Templeton, have drawn a continuous stream of capital, with roughly $38 million flowing in over just two trading days in the middle of the week. On Wednesday alone, net inflows into the US spot vehicles reached $18.04 million, pushing their total net assets to $1.65 billion. The persistence of those subscriptions suggests professional investors are methodically expanding exposure regardless of short-term price swings.

Network Activity Jumps as Ripple Hardens Defenses

On-chain metrics tell a similar story of expanding engagement. The XRP Ledger recorded 11,432 newly created accounts on Thursday — a 323% leap over the 30-day average of roughly 2,700 registrations per day. Ripple moved in parallel to shore up the network's security, integrating automated, AI-driven code reviews and a dedicated security team on Wednesday to catch potential vulnerabilities before any mainnet rollout.

Institutional plumbing around the network is thickening too. Freshly raised capital is earmarked for working capital and US business expansion, with clearing and prime brokerage singled out as priorities.

Garlinghouse Tempers Token Maximalism

Not every headline was bullish for the asset itself. Ripple chief executive Brad Garlinghouse said Thursday that he is no maximalist when it comes to his company's own token, noting that stablecoins such as RLUSD may be better suited to certain payment use cases than bridge currencies. RLUSD is meanwhile being tested in pilot programs, including an institutional credit market on the XRP Ledger run with Clearpool and Cicada Partners.

Validators Restart Clock on BatchV1_1

Technical progress hit a speed bump. Activation of the BatchV1_1 protocol upgrade has been pushed back by at least ten days, to no earlier than October 9. Validator support briefly dipped below the required 80% threshold during voting, which reset the activation window. The change is designed to let the network bundle and execute up to eight transactions simultaneously. According to media reports, that amendment and a companion version, fixBatchV1_2, are now moving through a validator voting cycle expected to run about two weeks. The original target for BatchV1_1 had been the coming Tuesday.

Price Decouples From the Pack

XRP has been trading at 1.55 USD, up 1.0% on the day, extending a seven-day gain of 11%. A separate reading put the token at 1.57 USD with a 12% weekly advance. CoinDesk data showed the price climbing 5.50% over 24 hours on Friday, outpacing the CoinDesk 20 Index's 2.60% gain over the same stretch — a divergence market watchers read as evidence of asset-specific momentum rather than broad sector sentiment. The token now sits 20% above its 50-day average of 1.31 USD, and chartists flag the 1.60 to 1.65 USD zone as the next meaningful resistance.

The market also absorbed a pair of external shocks. A security breach at crypto exchange Bitget saw more than $350 million in digital assets improperly withdrawn on Thursday; XRP was the highest-volume asset affected, according to the platform, which pledged to cover the losses in full through its own protection fund. And on September 15, a procedural vote on the US CLARITY Act failed in the Senate after falling short of the 60-vote threshold — a postponement that triggered a drop of more than 9% at the time. Garlinghouse had urged senators beforehand to back the compromise text rather than hold out for a perfect draft. Despite that setback, XRP has clawed its way to a higher level.