XRP Whales Step Back as Retail Wallets Surge: Network Upgrade Meets Political Crosswinds
26.05.2026 - 17:51:43 | boerse-global.de
The XRP ecosystem is flashing mixed signals. Institutional whales have gone unusually quiet, while retail investors are piling into the network at near-record pace. Meanwhile, a critical software upgrade is set to go live — and a U.S. Senate vote on XRP’s legal status could be just weeks away.
Over the past few days, the number of large XRP transactions — those involving sums worth millions of dollars — collapsed by 57%, tumbling from 157 to just 67 movements. Market watchers interpret this as a deliberate wait-and-see posture from large holders, even as exchange outflows still suggest underlying accumulation. The 30-day liquidity index for XRP on Binance hit its lowest level since January 2020 on May 25, a development that typically amplifies price swings in either direction.
Retail investors are telling a different story. On May 20 alone, roughly 4,300 new wallets were created on the XRP Ledger — the fourth-highest daily addition this year. Active addresses are climbing to fresh highs, signalling robust grassroots usage. And that usage is getting a major real-world boost: six weeks after Rakuten’s integration went live, 44 million Japanese users can now spend XRP at over five million merchants. The platform currently circulates loyalty points worth roughly $23 billion, with a direct bank connection for millions of customers planned for the third quarter of 2026.
Against this backdrop of diverging investor behaviour, the XRP Ledger is preparing for a maintenance upgrade. On May 27, the network will activate fixCleanup3_1_3, an amendment that automatically clears expired or stuck NFT offers. The change prevents data bloat from accumulating in the ledger — a growing issue as NFTs and tokenized assets trade on the platform. Two additional fixes tighten security checks for Permissioned Domains and refine token-limits testing for vault withdrawals. The upgrade is expected to activate automatically once validator consensus is reached.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying XRP?
The token’s price, however, remains under pressure. XRP is trading at $1.35, roughly 62% below its 52-week high of $3.56 and nearly 20% below its 200-day moving average. Sentiment on social media has turned bearish: Santiment reported a bull-to-bear comment ratio of just 1.1:1 on May 26, a level that historically has preceded short-term price stabilisation, as those inclined to sell may have already done so.
Yet institutional capital continues to flow into spot XRP ETFs. On May 25 alone, these products recorded net inflows of $22 million. Over the most recent trading week, fresh capital totalled around $13 million. Since launch, cumulative net inflows into XRP ETFs have reached $1.36 billion. JP Morgan Chase projects first-year inflows of between $4 billion and $8 billion, though Bloomberg Intelligence notes that pension funds are still on the sidelines — 84% of invested capital so far comes from retail investors betting on regulatory clarity.
That clarity may come from Washington. The Senate Banking Committee passed the CLARITY Act in mid-May by a 15-9 vote, with two Democrats crossing party lines. The bill would codify XRP as a commodity at the federal level. A full Senate vote is expected in June. Separately, Senator Elizabeth Warren has demanded the release of approval records for Ripple’s stablecoin RLUSD by June 1, calling the conditional OCC authorisation granted in late 2025 “illegal” and warning of risks to the banking system.
XRP at a turning point? This analysis reveals what investors need to know now.
As the technical upgrade activates and political timelines converge, the near-term trajectory of XRP hinges on whether ETF inflows and retail adoption can outweigh the caution of whales and the gravity of a token trading deep in bear territory.
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