Spot XRP ETF trading volume hit $125 million in a single session on August 20, and cumulative inflows across all seven United States funds reached $1.57 billion by August 24. XRP itself traded near $1.05 on August 25, down 57% from its January 2026 cycle high, leaving a gap between how fast the ETF infrastructure is growing and where the token's price sits.
Bitwise's XRP ETF posted $125 million in single-day trading volume on August 20, beating the prior record by 42%. Bitwise's fund alone cleared $200 million across three consecutive sessions by August 24. XRP captured roughly 6% of total volume across Bitwise's crypto products that day, up from below 2% for most of July.
Inflows accelerate after a slow start
July closed with $27.29 million in total XRP ETF inflows, and the first week of August brought net outflows. The pattern reversed sharply from there: the week ending August 22 delivered $39.78 million, the strongest weekly result in three months. That pushed August's total to $56.86 million, more than double July's full-month figure. Cumulative net inflows across all seven funds reached $1.57 billion as of August 24. Bitwise leads at $542 million, followed by Canary Capital at $468 million and Franklin Templeton at $434 million.
Whale buying and a derivatives whipsaw
Addresses holding between one million and ten million XRP accumulated approximately 380 million tokens during the week of August 18. That lifted the bracket's holdings from 16.05 billion to 16.36 billion XRP. This whale accumulation happened while XRP still hovered near $1, well before the token's move to $1.23 on August 20. XRP futures open interest rose 27% over seven days to $3.50 billion, and on August 20, $33 million in short positions were liquidated as XRP reclaimed $1.30 for the first time since early June.
Two days later, XRP suffered a 37% flash crash on August 22 as roughly $500 million in leveraged long positions were liquidated across the crypto market. August ETF inflows kept rising after the crash, however, showing spot demand did not reverse even as leverage unwound.
The infrastructure-price gap
Goldman Sachs disclosed $86.5 million across five spot XRP ETFs in its Q2 2026 filing, after reporting zero XRP ETF exposure at the end of Q1. At $1.57 billion in inflows against XRP's roughly $60 billion fully diluted market cap, ETF flows represent roughly 2.6% of total value, compared with about 5% for bitcoin. The ETF infrastructure has scaled through a price drawdown rather than alongside a rally.
Source: crypto.news
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