XRP’s Strongest Network Signals Are Back. One Missing Buyer Still Controls What Happens Next

XRP has several of the signals bulls normally want to see at the same time.

Activity on the XRP Ledger has returned to a two-month high. Large holders are sending far less XRP to Binance.

Derivatives traders are rebuilding exposure near the token’s recent lows.

Yet XRP is still hovering around $1.

The mix becomes clearer when the market is separated into three pieces: network use, potential selling pressure and fresh investment demand.

The first two have improved. The third remains conspicuously weak.

A new CryptoSlate analysis found that the XRP Ledger recorded 49,929 active addresses during a 24-hour period this week. That was the network’s highest reading in more than two months and about 3% above the 48,453 addresses recorded when XRP traded above $1.54 in May, after daily activity had fallen as low as 25,350 on July 10.

Unlike May, the latest activity surge did not ride alongside a price breakout. XRP is roughly 35% below the level seen during that earlier peak, and social sentiment across X, Reddit, Telegram and other tracked crypto channels recently fell sharply to a three-month low even as active addresses nearly doubled from the July trough.

More users are showing up again while the market mood is substantially worse.

The same report found that the three-month average of whale inflows to Binance fell to about $61 million, the lowest level since 2021. Meanwhile, XRP open interest increased across Bybit and Binance while fresh U.S. ETF inflows slowed sharply through the first half of August.

Taken together, those figures describe a market with broader ledger use, less potential whale supply arriving at one major exchange and more leveraged positioning—but without the spot buying needed to push XRP decisively away from $1.

📊 DATA: XRP Ledger activity hit a two-month high and whale deposits to Binance fell to their lowest since 2021.

The missing fuel is spot demand: US XRP ETFs drew just $3.27M in August’s first half as XRP stayed near $1.

— CryptoSlate (@CryptoSlate) August 16, 2026

The broader network picture is encouraging, but it also comes with an important warning.

CryptoSlate reported that stablecoin holders on XRPL increased 37% over the past month to roughly 82,100, while stablecoin transfer volume rose 8.4% to $4.61 billion. At the same time, stablecoin market capitalization on the network fell 6.8% to about $906.8 million.

The tokenized-asset side showed a similar split. The number of real-world-asset holders rose 29%, but 30-day transfer volume fell almost 27% and distributed RWA value slipped 1.9%.

The latest RWA.xyz XRP Ledger data therefore points to a network attracting more participants without yet converting all of that participation into deeper pools of capital.

The gap spans both major growth lanes: stablecoins added holders and transfer volume while their network market value declined, and tokenized assets added holders while transfer volume and distributed value moved lower.

That distinction matters. A growing address count can signal renewed interest, but durable value comes when users stay, liquidity thickens and more economic activity settles on-chain.

Vet, a prominent XRP Ledger validator, has argued that builders need to retain more of the users and volume that arrive during stronger market cycles. The current rebound is a live test of that idea: activity has returned, but the ecosystem still has to give those users reasons to remain after the burst passes.

This will happen again on the XRP Ledger, and more violent than ever in user activity and volume. Boy did people shoot arrows at me in 2023 for thinking this.

Bear markets are tough for everyone, holders and builder's alike. It's insanely painful.

We'll bootstrap the XRP Ledger… https://t.co/A6S3FTaIfr

— Vet (@Vet_X0) August 13, 2026

The exchange-flow data adds another bullish-looking piece.

The three-month average of whale inflows to Binance has dropped to about $61 million, its lowest level since 2021, according to the CryptoSlate report. That compares with roughly $456 million in January 2025 and $355 million in October 2025.

Lower whale deposits do not automatically mean large holders are buying. They do mean substantially less XRP is being moved within easy reach of Binance’s spot market, reducing one obvious source of potential selling pressure.

Leverage is building at the same time. Bybit’s 30-day change in XRP open interest reached 54 million XRP on August 12, while Binance added another 29.5 million XRP. Combined, the two exchanges added about 83.5 million XRP in coin-denominated open interest.

Open interest alone cannot reveal direction because the positions include both longs and shorts. It does show traders preparing for movement while XRP remains near a psychologically important level.

The missing force is fresh spot capital.

U.S.-listed XRP exchange-traded funds attracted $131.94 million in May, according to the SoSoValue XRP ETF dashboard. Monthly inflows then fell to about $59.46 million in June and $27.29 million in July, meaning the pace dropped by roughly half in each successive month.

During the first half of August, the products drew only about $3.27 million. Roughly $2.25 million of that total arrived on August 13, leaving the rest of the period with barely more than $1 million in combined net additions.

Most of that August money arrived on a single day. The slowdown is occurring at the margin even though the funds have attracted roughly $1.51 billion cumulatively since launch.

As of August 13, the products held about $942 million in net assets, so the problem is a slowdown in new buying rather than a wholesale exit from the existing funds.

Stronger network activity and lighter whale deposits have yet to move the price because neither creates sustained buying pressure by itself.

XRP is approaching a cleaner test than the price chart alone suggests. If spot demand returns while network participation remains elevated and whale exchange deposits stay subdued, buyers would be entering a market with fewer obvious sources of overhead supply.

If ETF and spot flows remain weak, leverage can increase volatility without producing a durable recovery.

The network has supplied the activity. Large holders have reduced the exchange pressure.

Now XRP needs the buyer that turns an improved setup into an actual move.

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