XRP Tops $1.60 as 1,917 Whale Transactions Hit Monthly High

XRP Crosses $1.60 as Large Transfers Surge

XRP traders saw the token move above $1.60 on Sept. 22 while transfers of at least $100,000 reached their highest count in roughly a month. Blockchain analytics firm Santiment reported 1,917 large XRP transactions alongside the price move, putting a number on activity among large holders as the market broke a level last seen on Feb. 4.

Santiment also counted 3,647 new XRP wallets during the surge, a measure of new addresses rather than a verified count of new people entering the market. The simultaneous rise in price, large transfers, and wallet creation shows more activity across the network. It does not establish how many of those transfers represented purchases, sales, or movement between wallets controlled by the same entity.

The move extended an advance already underway the previous day. XRP climbed 8.7% to about $1.54 on Sept. 21, when trader Peter Brandt shared a chart suggesting a longer-term rise to $5.40. That earlier XRP price increase preceded the break above $1.60; Brandt’s projection remains his interpretation of a chart, rather than a price reached in trading.

New Wallets Add to Signs of Market Activity

Wallet creation gives the rally a second measure beyond the size of individual transfers. A new address can be opened for many reasons, including a fresh user, an exchange operation, or a holder separating funds. Santiment’s tally therefore indicates network growth on its measure, while leaving the identities and motives behind those addresses unresolved.

Trading on South Korean exchange Upbit had also been unusually active before the breakout. XRP generated about $350 million of trading volume there on Sept. 21, exceeding bitcoin’s roughly $225.8 million on the exchange. The XRP trading figures on Upbit show substantial turnover in one market, though turnover includes both buying and selling and is separate from Santiment’s count of large onchain transactions.

These measures describe different parts of the market. Price shows where XRP changed hands, trading volume counts exchange activity, and blockchain data records transfers and addresses. Their rise together makes the session notable, but none of the three measures on its own identifies the net position taken by large holders.

Santiment Points to RLUSD Balances and an ETF Filing

Beyond the rally, Santiment pointed to XRP Ledger tokenized-asset and RLUSD balances of roughly $4.26 billion as part of the network’s backdrop. Ripple reported $2,395.6 million in circulating RLUSD as of Sept. 3, showing the scale of the stablecoin alongside the activity Santiment tracked.

About $1.05 billion of RLUSD was on the XRP Ledger as of Sept. 14, compared with roughly $1.37 billion on Ethereum. The distribution of RLUSD between the networks identifies the portion held on the network at that time. That balance gives investors a more specific measure of stablecoin activity on the XRP Ledger than RLUSD’s total circulation across multiple networks.

XRP has a direct role in that network activity: the ledger uses it to facilitate transactions and access network features. Those network functions connect use of the XRP Ledger to its native token.

U.S. investors can already buy shares of several XRP ETFs, including products from Bitwise, Franklin Templeton, and Grayscale. Santiment also noted that Bitwise filed a post-effective amendment to its XRP ETF registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Sept. 18. The filing updates an existing fund’s registration documents.

Demand for those funds held up through the week before the breakout, when U.S. spot XRP ETFs added $9.56 million in net inflows in the five sessions ending Sept. 18. That extended their run of weekly inflows to 10 weeks, with cumulative net inflows easing to about $1.71 billion after briefly reaching a record $1.72 billion on Sept. 16.