XRP jumps 50% in a week as Treasury buyback, CLARITY Act converge

XRP rose 56% to $1.6963 on Aug. 22, its biggest weekly gain since November 2024, as a Treasury buyback and a White House summit converged.

"The accumulation pattern resembles the pre-rally positioning seen before XRP's January 2026 high of $3.40," Ali Martinez, a crypto analyst, said, referring to whale addresses that added similar quantities before the token rallied from $2.00 to its peak.

Spot XRP ETFs drew $39.78 million in net inflows for the week ending Aug. 22, the strongest pace since May, lifting cumulative inflows to $1.55 billion since the seven funds launched in November 2025, according to SoSoValue data. Whale addresses holding between 1 million and 10 million XRP accumulated roughly 380 million tokens over the week, pushing tracked holdings to 16.36 billion XRP, while more than 240 million tokens left exchanges since summer began.

The move sets up a binary event on Sept. 15, when the Senate holds a procedural vote on the CLARITY Act, which would classify XRP as a digital commodity under CFTC oversight. Polymarket contracts give the bill roughly 16 percent odds of passing, but the market's response to the Aug. 19 White House summit — where Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse stood alongside SEC Chairman Paul Atkins — suggests traders are pricing in a higher probability of regulatory clarity.

The Treasury buyback that unlocked the rally

The sequence began Aug. 19, when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that long-term bond buyback operations would double to at least $4 billion per session starting Sept. 9. The 30-year Treasury yield, which had spiked to its highest level since 2007, fell to 5.19 percent within hours, freeing capital to rotate into risk assets. Bitcoin jumped from $62,000 to $69,000 in 48 hours, and more than $3 billion in crypto short positions were liquidated during the surge.

XRP's lower market capitalization relative to Bitcoin made it more sensitive to the rotation. Leveraged short sellers who had bet on a continued grind below $1 were forced to cover, and the resulting squeeze extended the underlying move. XRP jumped roughly 30 percent in two days following the summit, breaking a year-long downtrend in the process.

Whale accumulation and the exchange drain

The on-chain data shows accumulation began before the price moved. Whale transactions on the XRP Ledger rose 280 percent in 24 hours, with 38 large-value transfers exceeding $1 million recorded in a single trading day, up from a baseline of roughly 10 to 12 per day in July and early August. Whale transfers to Binance fell to their lowest level since 2021 during the same period, suggesting large holders were accumulating and holding rather than flipping for short-term profit.

Ripple's monthly escrow release added context. In August, Ripple unlocked 1 billion XRP from escrow, valued at approximately $1.08 billion. Despite this regular supply injection, whale accumulation outpaced the new supply reaching the market, a dynamic that had not occurred since early 2025.

ETF inflows and the overbought signal

The seven U.S. spot XRP ETFs reversed a summer slump with $39.78 million in net inflows for the week ending Aug. 22, led by Bitwise's fund at $16.89 million. Cumulative inflows reached $1.55 billion, with the funds holding approximately 1.50 percent of total XRP supply. The inflow pace had collapsed to $1.01 million for the week ending Aug. 8, down 93 percent from the prior week, before this week's reversal.

The technical picture is less certain. The Relative Strength Index reached 85.4 on Aug. 22, its most overbought reading since July 2025. In three of four previous instances where XRP's RSI exceeded 80 since the SEC settlement, the token lost at least 15 percent of its value within two weeks. A weekend flash crash on Aug. 22 added to the uncertainty: approximately $500 million in XRP long positions were liquidated in minutes when the price dropped sharply from $1.69 to $1.43 before recovering to the $1.46 to $1.51 range.

The rally also marks the first sustained price advance since the SEC settlement that correlates with improving on-chain metrics rather than pure speculation. For seven months before this week, XRP traded between $0.90 and $1.10 while Ripple's corporate fundamentals strengthened in the background. The disconnect between token price and business development narrowed sharply over five days.

What to watch: a daily close below the 200-day exponential moving average within five trading days would repeat the pattern of three previous failed breakouts. Weekly ETF flow data for the week ending Aug. 29 will confirm whether institutional demand is genuine, and the Sept. 15 CLARITY Act cloture vote remains the defining binary event for XRP's regulatory status.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.