XRP Rises 26% on ETF Inflows and Short Squeeze
The rally was fueled by forced short covering and $18 million in inflows into U.S. XRP ETFs. The question is whether that support will hold now that the XRP Ledger is preparing an upgrade.
Key Takeaways
- XRP rose about 26% over the past week and briefly hit $1.61 on September 22, while Bitcoin and the broader market fell.
- The move was partly driven by a short squeeze and $18.04 million in inflows into U.S. spot XRP ETFs on September 23.
- The BatchV1_1 upgrade of the XRP Ledger is now scheduled for October 9, after the earlier plan was delayed because validator support was too low.
XRP rose about 26% over the past week and briefly hit $1.61 (€1.41) on September 22, while Bitcoin and the broader crypto market actually fell. The move came alongside a short squeeze and fresh inflows into U.S. XRP ETFs, but it is still unclear whether that demand will hold.
Short Squeeze Pushes XRP Higher
A big part of the rally came from forced short covering. Traders who had bet on a drop had to close their positions as XRP kept climbing, which pushed the price even higher. According to CFTC data, a group of leveraged funds cut their net short position on the CME from 82.25 million XRP to 35.95 million XRP in one week.
Trading volume also jumped sharply. At the peak of the move, $7.4 billion (€6.5 billion) changed hands in a single day, far above normal. At the same time, the ETF market drew extra attention: U.S. spot XRP ETFs saw another $18.04 million (€15.8 million) in inflows on September 23, while total assets under management across seven U.S. XRP funds now stand at about $2 billion (€1.8 billion). That fits into a broader shift where other altcoin funds are also benefiting from new demand, such as the recent growth in Litecoin ETF holdings.
Market Moves Against the Trend
XRP's rise stood out because the coin moved higher while Bitcoin and the rest of the market lost ground. Bitcoin opened on September 24 at $84,370.41 (€74,000), down 2.1% from the day before, and the total crypto market fell 2.69% to $2.84 trillion (€2.5 trillion). That makes XRP's recent move even more notable, but it still says nothing about the next step.
The main question is whether ETF inflows will keep going now that the forced short covering has played out. The network also showed more activity: on September 24, 11,432 new accounts were created on the XRP Ledger, well above the daily average over the past 30 days. That points to more usage, but not automatically to lasting buying pressure.
BatchV1_1 Becomes the Next Test
Another important technical step is coming for XRP. The BatchV1_1 upgrade of the XRP Ledger is now scheduled for October 9, after the earlier plan for September 29 was delayed because validator support fell below the required 80%. The upgrade is meant to make it possible to bundle multiple transactions together so they all succeed or all fail.
That delay shows how decision-making on the network works. On September 22, 30 of the 35 validators still supported the upgrade, but that support has to stay high enough until activation. For European crypto readers, that matters because it shows XRP is driven not just by trading, but also by network decisions and ETF demand. That makes the coin more sensitive to both market flows and technical changes on the network.
