XRP’s $1 billion ETF figure is deceptive, and a concealed flow metric reveals why the price stays flat.

XRP spot ETFs have surpassed $1 billion in assets under management, with approximately $1.14 billion distributed among five issuers. Since November 14, net inflows have reached around $423.27 million.

According to the same CoinGlass dashboard, XRP itself is trading at about $1.88, boasting a market capitalization of $114.11 billion and around $382.14 million in 24-hour spot volume.

If your mental framework is based on the Bitcoin ETF period, where “wrapper demand” and “price repricing” seemed closely linked, that association might appear amusing.

However, it’s not.

This serves as a reminder that ETFs do not inherently boost prices. They channel demand through a quite specific set of mechanisms.

Unless those mechanisms are extracting genuine supply from the market more swiftly than it is replenished, it is possible to achieve an impressive AUM milestone while the underlying asset behaves as if influenced by different factors.

The simplest way to illustrate the disconnect is this: when readers see “AUM,” they often assume it equates to new purchases.

But the key lever influencing price isn’t merely the headline AUM figure. It’s the speed and consistency of net creations, where fresh capital compels authorized participants to acquire underlying XRP, issue new shares, and store that XRP within the fund wrapper to prevent it from circulating like a retail wallet.

When you begin to distinguish AUM from net creations, the narrative shifts from enigmatic to mechanical.

That’s encouraging news, as mechanics are observable.

Related Reading

XRP is quietly forming a “spring-loaded” supply setup that frustrated retail traders are completely ignoring

Millions of tokens are disappearing into cold storage for ETFs, leaving the available supply dangerously low for anyone attempting to buy back in later.

Dec 29, 2025 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo

AUM is the billboard, creations do the work

AUM can increase for reasons unrelated to new demand arriving that week.

If XRP appreciates, the ETF wrapper’s AUM rises concurrently. If market makers supply inventory at launch, AUM can initially appear substantial before the gradual process of daily allocations even begins.

Even secondary-market trading, which can generate busy, headline-worthy volume, may primarily consist of investors swapping existing ETF shares without necessitating any new XRP purchases.

Net creations differ. They are the component of the ETF mechanism that must interact with the underlying asset directly.

CoinGlass’s breakdown offers a clear entry point into the calculations.

If AUM is approximately $1.14 billion and inflows since mid-November amount to around $423.27 million, then a significant portion of that AUM, by definition, consists of something other than fresh cash entering the market in recent weeks.

That “something” can include early positioning, seeded inventory, and market shifts—each is real and valid, yet not equivalent to consistent incremental buying that tightens tradable supply.

Now convert AUM into coins and available supply, as that’s where ETF narratives either sharpen or become muddled.

At roughly $1.88 per XRP, $1.14 billion translates to approximately 600 million XRP held through these ETFs, give or take.

In comparison to a circulating supply of around 60.67 billion XRP, this results in roughly 1% of circulating supply being contained within the wrappers.

1% is significant. It constitutes a genuine warehouse, broadens accessibility, and introduces a new class of holders.

However, it’s also not the kind of share-of-float that independently induces a one-way squeeze.

Bitcoin serves as a straightforward comparison because its ETF era trained observers to expect immediate, noticeable repricing.

By the end of 2025, US spot Bitcoin ETFs held about 1,298,757 BTC, which equates to approximately 6.185% of Bitcoin’s 21 million cap.

This ratio is a substantial factor in why Bitcoin’s wrapper narrative can seem so linear: pulling enough float into structures that don’t engage in day trading means the remaining liquid supply must clear at higher prices when demand remains steady.

XRP’s wrapper footprint is smaller, resulting in a correspondingly smaller mechanical “warehouse effect.”

This consideration arises before accounting for how much of the $1.14 billion is attributable to market movements rather than fresh net creations.

Even the rate of inflows presents a more sober perspective.

Related Reading

XRP ETFs are booming, but a quiet $15 billion payment layer matters more than the price

ETF flows reached $941 million within two months, but genuine adoption depends on Ripple’s ODL volumes, on-chain payments, and RLUSD growth on XRPL.

Dec 20, 2025 · Gino Matos

$423.27 million over approximately 35 days averages out to about $12 million per day.

In a token that frequently registers hundreds of millions in daily spot turnover, that’s a consistent bid. It can be significant at the margin, but it doesn’t automatically serve as the primary force in price discovery.

This is also where substantial first-day figures can be misleading.

Canary’s spot XRP ETF (XRPC) reportedly attracted over $46 million in trading on its first day, with Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas noting around $26 million of volume within the initial 30 minutes.

These numbers indicate that the wrapper launched with genuine attention and tradability, which is precisely what is desired when establishing an ETF category.

However, they do not reveal how many net shares were created, how much of the day comprised secondary churn, or how much involved market makers recycling inventory.

Thus, the initial ETF lesson, which often gets overlooked amid victory celebrations, is that AUM is a snapshot, while net creations represent a flow.

It’s the flow that does the heavy lifting regarding price.

Escrow cadence and hedge books can mute the bid

Even if you accept that XRP’s ETF narrative is legitimate and that the wrappers are functioning as intended, there’s a second question.

What additional factors in the market at the same time might absorb that demand without yielding a visible reaction in the chart?

With XRP, the supply calendar plays a significant role in the answer, and it’s not an insignificant one.

Ripple has locked 55 billion XRP into on-ledger escrows and described a mechanism that releases up to 1 billion XRP each month, with any unused amounts placed into new escrows.

The crucial point is not that 1 billion XRP enters the market monthly, as it does not.

It’s that traders are accustomed to a known, recurring cadence, which influences how liquidity providers quote risk and how aggressively they pursue price when demand materializes.

A market that anticipates supply to appear on schedule tends to price rallies differently than one that perceives supply as scarce and unpredictable.

Then there’s the legal context, which became clearer in 2025 but did not transform XRP into a frictionless institutional asset overnight.

The SEC concluded its lawsuit against Ripple in August 2025, leaving a $125 million fine intact and an injunction related to institutional sales.

This alleviates one concern, and it is significant. However, it also leaves behind a record that keeps distribution and access as an ongoing topic, particularly for buyers who are concerned about how an asset is treated across different venues and jurisdictions.

Now, consider the aspect that most retail traders often overlook: hedging.

ETF creations do not occur as pure, unhedged spot buying.

Authorized participants and market makers hedge their exposure while they source inventory, manage timing, and arbitrage differences between venues and products.

This frequently involves buying spot XRP while simultaneously shorting futures or perpetual contracts to maintain neutrality or to secure the spread they are being compensated to capture.

When that hedge layer is substantial, a portion of what appears to be demand is met with synthetic selling that prevents the spot chart from responding in the anticipated manner.

In 2025, that hedge toolkit became more recognizable to institutional desks.

CME announced plans to launch cash-settled XRP futures on May 19, 2025, pending regulatory approval.

This is less significant as a headline and more as a bridge into the type of risk management that large firms already utilize in other assets.

On CoinGlass, XRP derivatives activity already appears large enough to support genuine hedging: open interest around $3.40 billion and 24-hour futures volume around $2.56 billion.

That provides ample opportunity for ETF-related hedges to counterbalance spot demand, especially when the market is inclined toward preferring exposure rentals over outright holdings.

The mix of venues is also important, as liquidity encompasses not just “how much volume prints,” but also “where the marginal buyer and seller are actually interacting.”

Kaiko reported in April 2025 that XRP’s spot volume was heavily concentrated offshore, while its share of spot volume on US exchanges had risen to its highest level since the wave of delistings associated with the SEC’s 2021 lawsuit.

Offshore concentration can provide raw liquidity, but it can also diffuse price discovery across fragmented pools, each with its own mix of participants, fee structures, and hedging behaviors.

This makes it easier for flows in one wrapper to be absorbed without the spot chart reacting prominently.

That broader context also shows up in the simple chart history

XRP closed near $1.88 on January 1, 2026.

In 2025, it reached a closing high of approximately $3.55 on July 22 and a closing low of around $1.80 on April 8.

This indicates a drawdown of roughly 47% from the July closing peak to the start of 2026.

In a market that has experienced such a round trip within a few months, buyers tend to take profits more swiftly, sellers tend to emerge sooner, and liquidity can appear abundant right until it isn’t.

Spot volume over the last month was below the average daily volume of 2025, and realized volatility over the last 90 days was high.

This is precisely the combination that causes price to behave erratically even when the news appears clear.

When you consider all of this, the fact that prices have remained relatively stable ceases to seem contradictory.

A $1.14 billion wrapper that constitutes about 1% of circulating supply can coexist with a flat or volatile chart when net creations are steady but not dominant.

This is particularly true when a known escrow cadence keeps supply expectations anchored, when hedges in perpetual contracts and futures align with spot buying in real time, and when liquidity is distributed across multiple venues rather than concentrated in a single deep onshore pool.

To create a tighter link between XRP ETF growth and spot price, similar to what was often observed with Bitcoin, would also be straightforward.

Net creations would need to accelerate sufficiently to surpass routine sell flow.

Some of the hedge layer would need to unwind rather than accumulate, and a deeper, cleaner onshore liquidity base would be necessary, where marginal demand encounters fewer frictions and detours.

In summary, the wrappers would need to evolve from being a new access point to becoming a relentless vacuum.

Until that occurs, $1 billion in XRP ETFs remains significant, albeit for different reasons than the immediate excitement of a one-day repricing.

It indicates that the wrapper category has transitioned from novelty to a habitual presence.

It suggests that advisors and brokerage accounts now possess a straightforward method to hold XRP without the complexities of managing wallets and venues.

And it implies that when market sentiment improves and flows increase, the infrastructure for a more substantial move is already established.

The mechanisms are in place.

At this moment, they are facilitating movement, not triggering a deluge.

The post XRP’s $1 billion ETF record is misleading, and one hidden flow metric explains why price remains stagnant appeared first on CryptoSlate.