Russia’s biggest stock exchange opened the door for regulated XRP access in mid-May. Moscow Exchange launched an official XRP index and ruble-settled futures, giving its qualified investors a way to buy and trade XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) without leaving the Russian financial system.
In the two weeks since, XRP accumulation has picked up. Whale wallets have hit a multi-year high, on-chain buying has accelerated, and institutional money has continued flowing into XRP ETFs while the rest of crypto bleeds.
So what does the data actually show, and how big a deal is the Russia move for XRP?
What Russia’s Moscow Exchange Just Did for XRP
Two things happened in mid-May. On May 13, Moscow Exchange started publishing its MOEXXRP index, a real-time price benchmark that updates every 15 seconds during trading hours. The day after, it launched ruble-settled XRP futures contracts with monthly expiries, available to qualified investors only.
That is a technical-sounding change, but it makes a real difference for a Russian buyer. Before this, a Russian institution that wanted XRP exposure had to go through a foreign exchange, deal with currency conversion, and carry the infrastructure risk of holding crypto outside Russian regulatory protection. After May 14, they can get the same exposure on the same exchange they already use for stocks and bonds.
Moreover, Moscow Exchange already has more than 62,000 derivatives clients actively trading its earlier Bitcoin and Ethereum futures contracts. So XRP launched into an exchange already full of people trading crypto futures every day.
XRP Accumulation Is Showing Up in the On-Chain Data
Long-term holders have been buying XRP steadily through a dismal year for the price. On-chain analytics firm Santiment reported 332,230 wallets holding at least 10,000 XRP as of mid-May, an all-time high for that tier. The trend has been running uninterrupted since June 2024, back when XRP was trading around 50 cents.
Whale wallets holding 10 million XRP or more now control around 68.5% of the circulating supply, which is the heaviest concentration of XRP in big hands since 2018. That same tier added 1.2 billion XRP in the first quarter of 2026 alone, the biggest quarterly accumulation since 2023.
The buying has carried straight into the MOEX launch window. On May 20, the network saw 4,300 new wallets created in a single day, the fourth-largest daily spike of the year. Over the past week, whales added another 71 million tokens. And more than half of all the XRP leaving Binance recently has come in transfers above one million coins, exchange outflows of a size that usually signals long-term positioning by major holders.
Moreover, XRP’s institutional flows have been accelerating. Cumulative net inflows into U.S. spot XRP ETFs have now reached $1.41 billion since launching last November, and the past two weeks have seen XRP fund flows outpace both Bitcoin and Ethereum. Spot Bitcoin ETFs have bled over $2 billion this month, while Ethereum funds have shed another $401 million. So, XRP is quietly winning the flow war while the rest of crypto bleeds.
Why XRP Whales Are Buying With the Price 64% Off Its Peak
The buying is happening from a low base, which is the part that makes it interesting. XRP trades around $1.32 today, roughly 64% below its $3.65 peak from July 2025, and well below where it spent most of last year.
Smart money tends to move when retail sentiment hits extremes, and that’s exactly where XRP is right now. On May 26, Santiment flagged that XRP’s 30-day MVRV, which measures the average trader’s recent returns, has fallen to its lowest level since December 2020. In plain terms, the typical short-term holder is down about 47%, and many of them are selling at the bottom.
Santiment also mentioned that patient buyers tend to accumulate during extreme fear rather than chase momentum, and the firm called the current setup one of the rare extremes that have historically come right before strong rebounds.
This means that big holders aren’t waiting for the all-clear, and they aren’t waiting for a confirmed bottom. They’re adding through the drawdown, which is exactly the behavior Santiment is describing.
Even the prediction markets show how negative the mood has become. They currently price the odds of XRP setting a new all-time high in 2026 at just 18%, showing how bleak XRP’s chances of rallying this year is.
What XRP Holders Should Actually Watch From Here
The Russia move is additive, not transformative. Moscow Exchange won’t push XRP’s price up on its own, and the daily futures volume isn’t the metric to track. What matters is that another major national exchange now treats XRP as a regulated, institutional-grade asset alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum, and the list of exchanges doing that keeps growing.
Another key thing to note is that whales kept buying through the February crash and through yesterday’s Iran-driven selloff. Showing that even after a year of selling pressure, big holders are still adding at these prices. That doesn’t guarantee a recovery, but it tells anyone watching XRP that the largest buyers are not the ones leaving.
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