XRP Retreats 5.8% as Hot US Data Overshadows Short Squeeze Rally
Published on 09/25/2026 at 02:40 | Editorial boerse-global.de
A stronger-than-expected reading on the US economy has knocked XRP off its recent perch, with the token shedding 5.8% on Thursday to trade at 1.48 USD as a broad selloff swept through digital assets.
The pullback traces back to S&P Global's preliminary composite purchasing managers' index, which climbed to 58.4 in September from 56.0 a month earlier — the loftiest level since July 2021. Costlier energy and capacity constraints drove the increase, and S&P Global reads the print as a signal that the Federal Reserve will keep policy tight. Renewed inflation jitters have traders pricing in additional rate moves from the central bank before year-end, sapping appetite for riskier holdings. Bitcoin and Ethereum both retreated alongside XRP, and that macro tide proved strong enough to overwhelm the token's earlier momentum.
A Seven-Day Gain That Survived the Dip
Even after Thursday's slide, XRP remains up 14% over the past week. The advance began around 1.25 USD on 17 September and carried the token to an intraday peak of 1.6581 USD before profit-taking set in. The rally's most explosive leg came earlier in the week, when a wave of forced short liquidations rippled across the market. Media accounts suggest XRP bore the brunt of that squeeze because speculative bearish bets had piled up disproportionately beforehand, and the resulting buybacks turbocharged the move. The surge pushed the price back above several technical barriers, including its 200-day moving average of 1.27 USD.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying XRP?
That rebound followed a mid-month stumble in Washington. On 15 September, a procedural vote on the CLARITY Act fell short of the 60-vote threshold in the US Senate, stalling the digital market structure bill and triggering immediate selling pressure. A separate Senate effort to formally classify XRP as a commodity also failed to secure majority support. In response, a crypto-backed political committee is preparing a multimillion-dollar campaign targeting former officeholders, while the Commodity Futures Trading Commission presses ahead with its own regulatory framework.
ETF Inflows and Institutional Backing
Institutional money has provided a counterweight. US-listed funds pulled in 11.54 million USD through Bitwise's vehicle, lifting total assets across all American funds to 1.65 billion USD. That builds on more than 153 million USD of inflows recorded in August.
On the network side, activity has picked up noticeably, though whether the spike reflects new end users, internal exchange transfers or wallet migrations remains unclear. Ripple also launched an AI-driven security program designed to surface vulnerabilities on the XRP Ledger early. Validators, meanwhile, are voting on protocol changes that would bring liquidity pools and fixed-term credit directly onto the blockchain.
Batch Upgrade on the Horizon
Attention now turns to Tuesday, when the network's technical roadmap takes center stage. Provided validators maintain the required majority, the BatchV1_1 update is set to activate. The change would let developers bundle as many as eight transactions into a single operation — a step that could reshape how activity flows across the ledger.
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