Key Takeaways:
XRP rose 15% to $1.15 on Thursday as ledger data showed nearly a quarter of onchain transfers now cluster in the three-hour London-New York overlap.
"It's the same window global FX concentrates in, and it's the only stretch of the day when the world's two biggest financial centers are open at once," Evernorth, a treasury firm that manages XRP, said in a statement shared with CoinDesk.
About 23% of XRP moving on the XRP Ledger now settles during the window spanning London's afternoon and New York's morning, up from roughly 14% a year ago, according to ledger data analyzed by Evernorth. The three hours represent 12.5% of a full day, so activity inside them runs at nearly twice the rate of an evenly distributed 24-hour cycle. The concentration appears across all three ways XRP trades on the ledger — its order book, automated market maker pools, and cross-currency payments routed through both.
The shift aligns with growing institutional interest, Evernorth said, though public ledger records cannot confirm who sits behind the accounts. XRP's jump to $1.15, briefly touching $1.16, joined a rally that took bitcoin past $72,000.
A Weekday Rush Hour on the Ledger
Evernorth's analysis, posted Aug. 18, found the three-hour window captured 23.5% of weekday onchain XRP volume in July, up from 14.3% in the same month a year earlier. Activity peaked near 10% of daily volume at 2 p.m. UTC, the firm's chart showed. The same intraday concentration appeared across order-book trades, automated market maker pools, and cross-currency payments routed through ledger liquidity.
The pattern mirrors global foreign exchange, where the London-New York overlap is the busiest period of the trading day. Evernorth has a financial interest in expanding XRP's institutional role — its treasury strategy, backed by Ripple and other investors, targets a Nasdaq listing with more than $1 billion in expected gross proceeds, per its filings.
What the Data Can't Show
Public blockchain records reveal transactions, timing, and market routes, but they generally do not disclose the identities behind participating accounts. Nothing stops retail traders or automated strategies from producing the same shape, and the overlap window is also when most crypto news breaks and U.S. exchanges record their heaviest retail volume.
The pattern follows months of large orders arriving without much price impact. A CoinDesk report earlier this month showed average XRP spot order sizes staying in big-whale territory through the token's slide from about $2.40 in January into the $1 to $1.20 range, a pattern of absorption rather than a breakout. XRP's 15% jump on Thursday, alongside bitcoin's move past $72,000, suggests that absorption may be giving way to accumulation, though the ledger data alone cannot confirm institutional participation.
The next test for XRP comes Sept. 15, when the U.S. Senate holds a cloture vote on the CLARITY Act, which would classify XRP as a commodity under federal law — the outcome institutional buyers have been waiting on, according to 24/7 Wall St. analysis.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
