Ripple XRP ETFs Hit Record Outflows As XRPI, XRPR Crash Toward Cycle Lows

Ripple XRP ETF Complex (XRPI, XRPR, Bitwise): Stress Test At Cycle Lows

Spot Damage In XRP ETF XRPI And XRPR

XRPI on Nasdaq closed at $9.97, down 3.58% or $0.37 from $10.34. It traded between $9.83 and $10.24, with $9.83 now both the intraday low and the 52-week floor against a prior year high at $23.53. Average volume is about 530.74K units, so the move was not a thin-print anomaly but a proper test of the bottom of the range.
XRPR (REX Osprey XRP ETF on BATS) finished at $14.29, down 3.12% or $0.46 from $14.75. Today’s range of $14.11–$14.59 left the session low sitting exactly on the 52-week low of $14.11, versus a yearly high at $25.99. Average volume is only 11.93K, so the tape is thinner, but price is still about 45% under the top of the band.
Both XRPI and XRPR are now priced at the bottom of their one-year corridors while XRP-USD trades around $1.70–$1.80, after failing to hold above $2.00–$2.35 in December. Equity-style beta is magnifying spot weakness right at the lows, not at the highs.

Record XRP ETF Outflows And Structural AUM Picture

Spot XRP ETF products have moved from a perfect launch streak to the first meaningful liquidation phase. Since November 2025 launch, the complex ran 35 straight trading days with zero redemptions, pushing cumulative inflows to roughly $1.2–$1.3 billion and AUM to around $1.21–$1.35 billion.
The first crack came on January 7, with about $40.8 million leaving the products. Market treated that as classic profit-taking after a ~25% jump in XRP-USD, and flows normalized quickly. The real test arrived on January 20, when ETFs saw their largest single-day redemption so far: $53.32 million. Most of that came from Grayscale’s GXRP Grayscale with roughly $55.39 million out, partially countered by $2.07 million into Franklin’s XRPZ from Franklin Templeton Franklin Templeton.
Later in the month, another blow hit: one session saw XRP spot ETFs dump about $92.9–$93.0 million, at the same time spot XRP-USD dropped around 6.4% to $1.74 and volume spiked 67.58% to roughly $5.16 billion. Even after this, cumulative ETF inflows still sit near $1.17–$1.22 billion, and AUM remains above $1.2 billion, so the structure is battered but intact.

Short-Term XRP-USD Structure And ETF Sensitivity

On the daily chart, XRP-USD is trading around $1.75, down over 2.5% intraday in the FXStreet snapshot. It is pinned between support near $1.72 and former support turned resistance around $1.81. The 50-day EMA at $2.00, 100-day EMA at $2.13 and 200-day EMA at $2.27 all slope down, confirming short-term bearish structure.
Momentum is weak: the RSI near 34 hovers just above oversold, and the MACD is below its signal line with red histogram bars building under zero. A break below $1.72–$1.69 exposes the April low around $1.61, then the bigger levels at $1.46 and $1.24 flagged by on-chain and technical work. For XRPI and XRPR, a clean loss of $1.69 on spot would likely mean a fresh leg under $9.83 and $14.11, respectively, not a quick V-shaped recovery.

Leverage, Liquidations And Derivatives Pressure On XRP ETFs

Leverage is amplifying the drawdown rather than cushioning it. One session saw XRP-USD liquidations hit about $57 million, the highest level in roughly three months. At the same time, futures open interest dropped from $3.46 billion to $3.21 billion, a clear sign that traders are closing risk rather than adding into the dip.
Broader crypto futures saw even harsher pain, with total liquidations near $1.8 billion during one of the recent selloffs, while Bitcoin itself fell toward the $81,200–$82,300 zone. When long liquidations cascade, ETF issuers and APs are forced to mark down baskets; XRPI and XRPR then gap lower even if their share turnover looks modest. The result is an equity wrapper that trades like levered beta on a de-risking derivatives market.

ETF Flows Versus Exchange Balances And Whale Accumulation

Flows look ugly in the headlines, but the underlying ownership structure is more nuanced. Total XRP spot ETFs have pulled in more than $1.3 billion since launch and, on a monthly basis, have not yet printed a full net-red month despite violent daily outflows. Recent red days are offset by smaller but persistent green inflows in the following sessions, including about $12.68 million returning between January 21–23, with Bitwise Bitwise alone adding roughly $8.69 million (including a $3.43 million single-day inflow).
On exchanges, balances have been in structural decline. One dataset shows XRP on exchanges dropping from about 4.0 billion tokens in early 2025 to 1.6 billion by late December, a 60% reduction. At the same time, whale wallets holding more than 1 billion XRP have raised their holdings from 23.35 billion to 23.49 billion, adding about 140 million XRP into weakness.
Overlay that with flows: each $1 billion of ETF inflow is estimated to lock around 500 million XRP in custodial accounts, roughly 0.8% of total supply. The $1.2–$1.3 billion already raised implies around 600–650 million XRP absorbed by ETFs alone. That is not enough to neutralize every macro shock, but it creates a tight float that makes both rallies and selloffs more violent for XRPI, XRPR, and any future Bitwise-branded XRP ETF.

Seasonality, February Pattern And Trend Channel In XRP-USD

Seasonal data is not friendly. Historically, February has delivered a median return of −8.12% and an average of about −5% for XRP-USD, with February 2025 showing a drop of nearly 29%. Price is currently trading inside a down-sloping channel on the two-day chart, with lower highs and lower lows since mid-2025. As February 2026 opens, XRP-USD is drifting toward the lower boundary of that channel, exactly where seasonal risk is usually highest.
There is, however, a potential bullish divergence forming. Between October 10 and January 29, price printed a lower low while RSI attempts to set a higher low. For this to matter, the next two-day candle has to close above $1.71 and RSI must stay above 32.83. If that holds, downside momentum is likely exhausted and probability of a rebound toward $1.97 and then $2.41 improves. If not, the channel stays in full control and ETFs tied to XRP-USD continue to grind lower.

Macro Shock, Risk-Off And Correlation With Bitcoin And Gold

The latest ETF outflows did not happen in a vacuum. They hit as tariff threats from U.S. President Trump rattled global risk, while the Fed left rates unchanged and signaled patience on cuts. At the same time, former Fed governor Kevin Warsh is being floated as the next chair, injecting more uncertainty into rate expectations.
Risk assets responded together: Bitcoin slid below the $84,000 gate and briefly tested the $81,000–$82,000 pocket, gold dropped about 4% after trading above $5,300, high-beta tech names like Microsoft fell around 10%, and silver corrected even harder. Crypto-native analysts at CryptoQuant CryptoQuant highlighted leveraged long wipeouts on venues such as Hyperliquid, with more than $87 million in leveraged bets erased in hours.
In that context, XRP ETF redemptions are not purely token-specific. They are part of a generic risk-off move where investors trim exposure to anything volatile, from BTC-USD to XRP-USD, and use the most liquid wrappers like XRPI, XRPR or a Bitwise product as tools to de-risk quickly.

Standard Chartered’s $8 Call Versus Flow Reality

Standard Chartered has put a headline target around $8 for XRP-USD by late 2026, implying roughly +320% upside from current levels near $1.90 in that analysis window. That scenario rests on three pillars: clean regulatory status after the Ripple case, aggressive ETF inflows, and continued shrinking of exchange balances.
The math behind it is straightforward. The bank assumes $4–$8 billion of XRP ETF inflows. With about $500 million XRP locked per $1 billion, that would trap 2–4 billion XRP, on top of already tight exchange supply. Reality today is different: cumulative flows are near $1.2 billion, only about 15–30% of the required runway. December showed the disconnect clearly: even with about $483 million in net inflows that month, XRP-USD fell roughly 15%, from around $2.35 to $1.77.
A more realistic near-term band based on current flows and macro noise is $2.50–$4.00 for 2026, with $8 reserved for an extremely bullish alignment of ETF demand, macro easing and real-world adoption. For XRPI and XRPR, that would map into rough upside corridors back toward the mid-teens and low-20s, but only if the fund complex sees sustained monthly inflows, not intermittent panic days of $50–90 million in outflows.

Bitwise XRP ETF’s Stabilizing Role In The Complex

While daily headlines focus on redemptions, Bitwise’s XRP ETF behaves like the “smart stabilizer” inside the complex. In the week following the January 20 shock, Bitwise added about $8.69 million in net inflows, including a $3.43 million day on January 23, against a backdrop of broader crypto product outflows near $1.73 billion.
That pattern—other issuers bleeding while Bitwise accumulates—matters for two reasons. First, Bitwise tends to attract more systematic and quant-driven mandates; these accounts buy weakness and hold through noise, which dampens volatility in the wrapper. Second, the flows signal that not all institutional holders are abandoning the XRP ETF theme; some are rotating from expensive, high-fee structures like GXRP into more efficient products. For holders of XRPI and XRPR, Bitwise’s buying does not eliminate drawdowns, but it improves odds that aggregate ETF AUM does not collapse outright.

Risk Map For XRPI, XRPR, Bitwise XRP ETF And XRP-USD

On spot, the key support zone is $1.71–$1.69. A decisive close below that band on a two-day basis opens the way to $1.46, then $1.24. Above, the first pivot is $1.81, then the 50-day EMA at $2.00, and further up $1.97 on a two-day close. Clearing $1.97 unlocks a realistic test of $2.41 at channel resistance.
Translate that to XRPI: with a 52-week range of $9.83–$23.53, the current $9.97 print sits right on structural support. A clean breakdown in XRP-USD below $1.69 would likely push XRPI into new lows under $9.83 and invite forced selling from holders constrained by risk rules. On the upside, reclaiming $2.00–$2.10 on spot should allow XRPI to climb back into the $11–$13 zone first, with $15+ only if ETFs return to steady net inflows.
For XRPR, the support at $14.11 is equally critical. The ETF now trades at $14.29, barely above that floor. A sustained bounce in XRP-USD back toward $2.00–$2.40 should reposition XRPR in the $16–$19 band, while a breakdown toward $1.46 on spot risks dragging the fund closer to $12–$13. Any future Bitwise-branded XRP ETF will ride the same levels; its relative advantage will be fee structure and flow quality, not immunity from the macro tape.

Buy, Hold Or Sell: Positioning In XRPI, XRPR, Bitwise XRP ETF And XRP-USD

Given the data, the stance on the Ripple XRP ETF complex is Hold with a bearish short-term bias and asymmetric medium-term optionality.
Short term, record outflows of $53.3 million and separate sessions with roughly $92.9–$93.0 million in redemptions, plus $57 million in liquidations and an OI drop from $3.46 billion to $3.21 billion, argue against fresh aggressive buying here. Technicals confirm that message: XRP-USD sits below a declining 50-day EMA at $2.00, with RSI near 34 and key support only 3–4 cents under spot. From a risk-management view, this is not a location to chase upside with size.
Medium term, the structure is not broken. Cumulative ETF inflows near $1.2–$1.3 billion, exchange balances cut from 4.0 billion to 1.6 billion XRP, and whale holdings rising from 23.35 to 23.49 billion XRP show that larger players are still accumulating into fear. If $1.69 holds and the developing bullish divergence confirms, XRP-USD can rotate back toward $1.97–$2.41, which would re-rate XRPI and XRPR materially above today’s lows.
So the straight answer:
For existing holders of XRPI, XRPR, or a Bitwise XRP ETF, the position is a Hold, not a forced sell, provided risk size is under control and you can tolerate further volatility toward $1.46 on spot.
For new capital, the complex is not a clean Buy yet; it sits in a high-risk, high-reward zone where adding should be staged only if $1.69 holds and ETF flows flip back to sustained net inflows.
Labeling it a pure Sell ignores the tightening float, whales adding, and structural ETF adoption. Calling it a full Buy at the exact 52-week low with unconfirmed support is premature. The disciplined stance is Hold, wait for confirmation on $1.69 and flows, then scale in on strength rather than weakness.

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