XRP ETF Flows Clash With Fear: XRPI $7.75, XRPR $11.09 After $53M Hit

XRP ETF COMPLEX: XRPI, XRPR AND SPOT XRP FUNDS UNDER PRESSURE AROUND $7.75 AND $11.09

SPOT XRP CAPITULATION SIGNALS VERSUS STEADY XRP ETF NET INFLOWS

Price behavior on-chain and through the ETF channel is diverging. Spot XRP-USD has just printed the largest realized loss spike since 2022, with realized losses hitting multi-billion levels and the token sliding to a recent low around $1.3805 before stabilizing near $1.39. That kind of realized loss event occurs when a large group exits below cost and typically coincides with capitulation, not euphoria. The last comparable weekly loss milestone of roughly -1.93 billion dollars in realized losses was followed by a 114% move over eight months, which anchors the current capitulation signal as structurally important rather than noise. At the same time, price is down about 5% year-to-date, so the tape is still leaning negative in the short window. Against that backdrop, US-listed spot XRP ETF products are still adding capital. Over the trading week ending February 20, net inflows into US XRP spot funds reached about $1.84 million, marking a three-week streak in positive territory while broader crypto products saw sizable redemptions. Total net asset value across XRP spot ETFs stands near $1.02 billion, with cumulative historical net inflows around $1.23 billion and an ETF penetration ratio of roughly 1.18% of XRP’s market capitalization. That combination—spot sellers crystallizing losses while regulated products quietly absorb coins—defines the current structure: weak hands exiting on-chain while regulated wrappers continue to accumulate on a smaller, but persistent, scale.

XRPI ETF AND XRPR ETF PRICE ACTION: 4–5% DAILY DROP AFTER A STRONG START TO 2026

On the listed fund side, the US-traded XRP ETF pair XRPI and XRPR just absorbed a sharp single-session hit. XRPI ETF on NASDAQ closed at $7.75, down $0.35 on the day, a 4.32% loss, with after-hours trading nudging it slightly lower to $7.74. The session range ran from $7.69 to $7.94 against a previous close of $8.10. The current year range for XRPI ETF remains wide at $6.50 to $23.53, so at $7.75 the fund trades at roughly one-third of its 52-week high, more than 65% below the peak, even after the early-February spike that briefly pushed it back above $8.50. Intraday volume in prior sessions has clustered around the mid-hundreds of thousands of shares, which is enough liquidity to absorb flows but still allows a 4–5% day to clear without extreme prints. XRPR ETF on BATS moved in tandem but with thinner liquidity and a larger percentage move. XRPR ETF closed at $11.09, down $0.56 or 4.81% on the day, versus a prior close at $11.65. The intraday range was tight—$11.09 to $11.34—but the year range is $9.50 to $25.99, leaving the fund more than 55% below its 52-week high. Average trading volume is about 11.6 thousand shares, which magnifies the impact of marginal sellers when sentiment turns. Both funds have backed off meaningfully from the higher-volume days earlier in February when XRPI ETF traded near $8.80–$9.00 and XRPR ETF probed above $12.00. The current prints reflect a classic risk-off flush: high-beta wrappers giving back a chunk of the recent rebound while staying well above the cycle floor near $6.50 for XRPI ETF and $9.50 for XRPR ETF.

XRP SPOT ETFS: BITWISE XRP, FRANKLIN XRPZ AND GRAYSCALE GXRP DEFINE THE FLOW BATTLE

Under the hood, the spot XRP ETF complex is being driven by a clear rotation across issuers rather than a simple on/off switch for demand. During the most recent reporting week, net inflows into XRP spot funds totaled about $1.8446 million. The Bitwise XRP product, commonly referenced as the XRP ETF BITWISE, led with a weekly net inflow of $2.5213 million and now holds approximately $364 million of cumulative historical net inflow. Franklin’s XRP fund XRPZ added another $1.5296 million in the same window, lifting its historical net inflow to around $330 million. Those gains were partially offset by a $2.2062 million weekly outflow from GXRP, the Grayscale XRP Trust, whose cumulative net inflow stands near $129 million. Net-net, capital is not leaving the segment; it is rotating away from a legacy closed-end structure and into lower-fee, spot-based wrappers that more closely track XRP-USD. The bigger picture confirms this. Since launch in November 2025, XRP ETFs have amassed roughly $1.2 billion in cumulative inflows and around $1.0–$1.35 billion in assets, depending on the snapshot. The most aggressive stress event so far hit on January 20, 2026, when XRP ETFs saw about $53.32 million in same-day redemptions—the largest outflow since listing—with GXRP alone losing around $55.39 million while Franklin’s XRPZ took in roughly $2.07 million. That day sat inside a brutal week for the asset class, with about $1.73 billion in redemptions across all crypto investment products. Inflow behavior after that shock matters more than the shock itself. Over January 21–23, XRP ETFs drew approximately $12.68 million back, with the Bitwise fund adding around $8.69 million and a single-day print of $3.43 million on January 23. The flows pattern shows a de-risking spike, then a re-entry ramp rather than a structural exit. For XRPI ETF and XRPR ETF, which package XRP exposure in their own listed format, that behavior is encouraging: regulated demand is elastic but still net-positive over rolling multi-week windows.

BITCOIN AND ALTCOIN FLOWS: ETF LIQUIDITY MIGRATION AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR XRP-USD

XRP’s ETF story sits inside a much larger capital rotation dominated by Bitcoin. Over the last year, spot Bitcoin ETFs experienced a historic five-week outflow streak of about $3.8 billion, with weekly net outflows of roughly $650 million, $720 million, $950 million, $820 million and $660 million across successive weeks as macro pressure, tariff headlines and geopolitical shocks forced systematic risk cuts. Those outflows hit in an environment where the eleven US spot Bitcoin ETFs had previously peaked above $85 billion in assets under management, so the drawdown represented about 4.5% of peak AUM. The message from those numbers is not structural collapse but a clear shift toward capital preservation when volatility regimes change. At the same time, Bitcoin ETF demand has not disappeared. Recent sessions still recorded daily inflows around $88.1 million even as BTC-USD slipped toward the mid-$60,000s, which suggests ongoing use of ETFs as tactical vehicles rather than abandonment of the asset. For the rest of the market, the critical factor is liquidity migration. Across non-Bitcoin assets excluding Ethereum, cumulative spot market taker flows have turned roughly $209 billion negative over the last thirteen months, signalling sustained net selling pressure in the altcoin bucket. Corporate digital-asset treasuries have absorbed on the order of $800 billion that previously chased high-beta tokens, shrinking the speculative pool that used to fuel aggressive alt rallies. In that environment, XRP must fight for capital on two fronts: against Bitcoin, where ETF pipes are deep and liquid, and against the long tail of altcoins, where structural selling has been relentless. The fact that XRP spot ETFs still show net inflows of around $1.8 million in the latest week while Bitcoin ETFs posted net outflows above $300 million indicates that regulated demand is tilting selectively toward assets with clear legal status and specific utility stories. That helps explain why XRP-USD can see persistent ETF buying and still trade heavy when the broader altcoin complex is under a multi-month distribution regime.

STANDARD CHARTERED’S $8 XRP TARGET VERSUS REALISTIC ETF-DRIVEN UPSIDE

One of the most aggressive institutional targets on the table is the $8 level for XRP-USD projected for late 2026. That level implies roughly 320% upside from the $1.90 region referenced in earlier institutional work and a little less from current levels around $1.35–$1.40. The mechanics behind that target are straightforward: regulatory clarity after the SEC case, the launch and scaling of XRP spot ETFs, and shrinking liquid supply on exchanges. Exchange balances have dropped from about 4 billion tokens to roughly 1.6 billion over the past cycle, a 60% contraction in the pool readily available to sell. At the same time, each $1 billion of XRP ETF inflow effectively immobilizes around 500 million XRP—about 0.8% of total supply—inside custodial structures. At the high end of the institutional model, $4–$8 billion of ETF inflows would lock up 4 billion XRP and squeeze free float aggressively. The gap between theory and current data is in the flow run-rate. Cumulative inflows into XRP ETFs sit near $1.2–$1.23 billion. To reach the lower bound of the $4–$8 billion range, inflows would need to triple; to reach the upper bound, they would need to increase by a factor of more than six. On the price side, medium-term projections anchored around $2.50 over a four- to eight-week window and $3.00 over eight to twelve weeks assume ETF demand stays net-positive, US crypto legislation advances, and the macro backdrop gradually improves. Short-term levels around $1.00 remain on the risk map if risk-off episodes deepen, especially if geopolitical tension escalates or rate-cut expectations are pushed out. The structure is asymmetric: ETF mechanics and reduced exchange balances create powerful upside torque when conditions line up, but in the current macro regime, flows are not yet scaling at the pace implied by the most bullish institutional scenarios.

SUSQUEHANNA, CANARY XRPC PUTS AND THE SPLIT INSIDE TRADITIONAL FINANCE ON XRP

Institutional positioning is not one-sided. A large quantitative trading and investment firm with around $870 billion in assets under management has disclosed spot Bitcoin ETF holdings of approximately $1.3 billion, with over 17.27 million shares of GBTC valued north of $1.09 billion forming the core of that allocation. That is a clear statement of long-term conviction in Bitcoin as a store-of-value asset expressed through regulated wrappers. At the same time, that same firm has opened a bearish position on one of the key XRP funds. It holds put options linked to 18,800 shares of the Canary XRP ETF XRPC, a position sized around $366,000. Another major market-making and advisory shop has added its own put exposure around $216,000 on the same product. Those trades are not enormous relative to the firms’ balance sheets, but they send a clean signal: some of the largest players in traditional finance are willing to express directional downside views on XRP ETFs even while building large long-side exposure in Bitcoin vehicles. On the other side of the ledger, multiple global banking and trading desks, including franchises with heavy ETF and derivatives operations, have been identified as meaningful holders and liquidity providers in XRP products, and they have been a major driver of the $1.2-plus billion cumulative inflow number. The split is logical. Within diversified multi-asset portfolios, some desks are using XRP ETF puts as tactical hedges or relative-value bets against long Bitcoin ETF books; others are positioning outright for higher XRP-USD on a multi-quarter horizon and treating short-dated volatility as an entry point. For XRPI ETF and XRPR ETF, this institutional split translates into elevated two-way liquidity: when large players recycle risk, these listed funds feel the impact immediately through wider daily ranges and sharper reversals.

MACRO PRESSURE: TARIFF SHOCKS, RATE PATH UNCERTAINTY AND THE MARKET STRUCTURE BILL

Macro and policy risk are central to the current XRP profile. The latest tariff headlines, including threats of sweeping levies on key trade partners, have already pushed global indices and crypto benchmarks into synchronized pullbacks. On days when tariff rhetoric spikes, US equities have seen broad selloffs, the S&P 500 has rolled over from highs, and risk proxies in digital assets have struggled to hold key support levels. At the same time, the path of central-bank policy is still unsettled. If incoming US economic data delays expectations for first-half 2026 rate cuts, dollar strength can re-emerge and weigh on XRP-USD, both directly through FX translation and indirectly via risk-asset de-rating. In parallel, the Bank of Japan’s communication around its neutral rate band—currently discussed in ranges that extend up to 2.5%—matters because aggressive tightening would narrow US-Japan yield differentials and risk another yen carry trade unwind, draining global liquidity. That scenario is explicitly flagged as a downside driver for XRP, with a potential slide toward the $1.00 zone if carry unwinds accelerate. On the regulatory side, progress of the US Market Structure Bill is the primary constructive catalyst. Ongoing negotiations between banks and crypto intermediaries over stablecoin yields and asset treatment are pushing the bill forward. Every step toward a clear legal framework for spot crypto ETFs and on-chain settlement strengthens XRP’s use-case, because a defined perimeter for tokenized payments and liquidity products lifts the perceived durability of XRP utility. ETF flows already reflect that expectation: XRP spot funds are registering inflows while many Bitcoin ETFs bleed capital. For XRPI ETF and XRPR ETF, the bill is effectively a multi-month option on higher valuations. A clean passage through the Senate would likely justify higher fair-value multiples for XRP-linked products than the current $7.75 and $11.09 prints.

TECHNICAL ARCHITECTURE: BEARISH SHORT TERM, BUT STRUCTURAL SUPPORTS ARE CLEAR

From a pure price-structure perspective, XRP-USD is still trading below both its 50-day and 200-day exponential moving averages, with the 50-day line around $1.6562 and the 200-day close to $2.0947. The shorter EMA is sloping down against the longer one, a textbook short-term bearish signal that aligns with the recent slide to $1.3805. Key support zones cluster at $1.1227 (the February 6 low) and then at the psychological $1.00 level, with a deeper line in the sand around $0.7773. On the upside, the stair-step resistance structure sits at $1.50, $2.00, $2.50 and $3.00. A decisive daily close above $1.50 would open room to retest the 50-day EMA; a sustained break through the 50-day and a move toward the 200-day would signal a genuine trend reversal rather than a short-lived bounce. For XRPI ETF and XRPR ETF, the translation is straightforward even without precise EMA overlays. At $7.75, XRPI ETF is well above the $6.50 year low but far below the $23.53 high, leaving a wide band where volatility can play out. A revisit of the low-$7.00 area is possible if XRP-USD tests $1.12 or $1.00; conversely, any push back above $2.00 in spot XRP would justify a return toward the $9.00–$10.00 zone for XRPI ETF. XRPR ETF, at $11.09 versus a $9.50–$25.99 range, is sitting closer to its floor than its ceiling as well. The thinner volume profile means that breaks of key spot levels tend to produce larger percentage moves per day, so a clean reclaim of $1.50 and $2.00 in XRP-USD would likely deliver outsized rebounds in XRPR ETF compared with XRPI ETF, while downside spikes below $1.12 would punish XRPR ETF more on a proportional basis.

ASSESSMENT ON XRP ETFS: BIAS BULLISH MEDIUM TERM, RATING BUY ON WEAKNESS FOR XRPI AND XRPR

The total picture across flows, macro, on-chain signals and listed prices is internally consistent. Spot XRP is going through a capitulation phase, confirmed by the largest realized loss spike since 2022 and heavier losses than the broad crypto market in recent sessions. At the same time, XRP spot ETFs show cumulative historical net inflows around $1.2–$1.23 billion, with the latest week adding roughly $1.84 million even as Bitcoin ETFs recorded more than $300 million in net outflows and altcoins outside Ethereum logged a negative $209 billion taker-flow imbalance over the last thirteen months. Institutional positioning is split but engaged: large quantitative and trading houses are long more than $1 billion of Bitcoin ETFs, hold material XRP ETF exposure, and in some cases hedge that exposure with puts on funds like XRPC rather than exiting entirely. Macro risk—from tariffs, rates and geopolitical shocks—remains the main source of volatility, not structural damage to the XRP thesis. Against that backdrop, the realistic short-term outlook for XRP-USD remains cautious with downside risk toward $1.00 if another wave of risk-off selling arrives. That translates to the possibility of XRPI ETF probing the low-$7.00 area and XRPR ETF trading closer to $10.00. Over a four- to eight-week window, sustained ETF inflows, progress on the Market Structure Bill and reduced exchange balances justify a constructive stance toward a move back into the $2.00–$2.50 band on XRP-USD, which would underpin a recovery toward the high-single-digit zone for XRPI ETF and the mid-teens for XRPR ETF. Taking all of this into account, the stance on the XRP ETF complex is bullish on a medium-term horizon with explicit acceptance of near-term drawdown risk. At current levels around $7.75 for XRPI ETF and $11.09 for XRPR ETF, the rating is Buy on weakness rather than Buy at any price, with staggered entries favored over a single lump-sum allocation, and an expectation that volatility will remain elevated until macro stress and tariff noise ease.

That's TradingNEWS.com