For months, XRP (CRYPTO:XRP) holders had one thing to point to whenever the price dropped: the institutions were still buying. All through Q2, money kept flowing into the spot XRP ETFs week after week, and that steady buying was what held the price up. It was proof that big money still believed in XRP, even as the price kept sliding.
However, institutional buying has slowed down a little bit this week. XRP ETFs have now gone two trading days without any flows, and the XRP price has slipped back below $1.10 once more. It might be early days, but investors are starting to ask if the institutions are finally walking away.
XRP ETF Inflows Have Fallen to Almost Zero
To see how much things have slowed, it helps to go back to the start. The spot XRP ETFs launched late in 2025 to a rush of demand, pulling in over $666 million in November and nearly $500 million in December. Investors had waited years for a regulated way to hold XRP, and the money poured in the moment it arrived.
That launch frenzy faded in the first quarter of 2026, as first-wave excitement usually does. January inflows dropped to about $16 million, February recovered to $58 million, and March actually turned negative, with $31 million leaving the funds. Even so, the monthly numbers stayed in the tens of millions, which meant the buying had calmed down rather than disappeared.
The second quarter brought it roaring back. The funds pulled in $82 million in April, then $132 million in May, their strongest month of the year, and another $59 million in June. This was the steady, month-after-month buying that held XRP’s price up through the first half of the year, even as the token itself kept drifting lower. Institutions were still stepping in, and holders could point to that as proof the smart money hadn’t left.
That is what makes July stand out. So far this month, the funds have taken in just $4.68 million, a fraction of any full month since they launched, and two of the last three trading days saw no new money at all. Total assets have dropped from about $1.05 billion to $1.02 billion. The buying that held XRP up for eight months has nearly stopped.
Why the Money Stopped Coming
It’s tempting to read this as big money taking one look at XRP under $1.10 and deciding to leave. But the data points to something simpler and far less alarming.
Most of the slowdown is about the whole market, not just XRP. The crypto market has been in a bearish stretch, with the total market down about 2% on the day and money pulling back across the board. When investors get nervous, they tend to sell the smaller, riskier coins first and hold onto Bitcoin—but even Bitcoin ETFs have seen billions in outflows over the same weeks, when XRP funds were still recording inflows.
The bigger reason ETF money is slowing down is who was doing the buying in the first place. According to Bloomberg Intelligence, roughly 84% of the money in these XRP ETFs has come from everyday retail investors, not the pension funds and endowments most people picture when they hear “institutional money.” And most times, retail money and institutional money behave in opposite ways.
Retail buyers pile in when the price is climbing, and the mood is good, and they pull back the moment the price falls, and things turn negative. Whereas institutions move slowly and hold through the dips. So the slight dip in ETF activity could be down to XRP sliding under $1.10 again.
Another factor could be the delay in the CLARITY Act’s passage. The bill was the key event that could have pulled fresh money in, but it missed the July 4 White House deadline, and the only realistic window is now early August. With the big regulatory decision pushed back, there’s no urgent reason to buy right now, so the next wave of buyers is simply waiting to see what happens.
The Signs Institutions Are Still Buying XRP
For all the worry about institutions leaving, the striking thing is that almost nobody actually sold. The outflows on the weak days were tiny—a couple million dollars before the flows went flat—nothing close to the billions that left Bitcoin’s funds over the same stretch.
The money already held in these XRP ETFs stayed put. What changed is that new money stopped arriving, not that existing money rushed for the exit. So, the buyers didn’t sell, but just stopped buying, and those are two very different things.
Meanwhile, big XRP holders have been buying the dip. Over the past few weeks, wallets holding between 100 million and 1 billion XRP added to their positions as the price fell, with the largest of them buying roughly $200 million worth of the token. New XRP Ledger wallets also hit a three-month high in early July, close to 5,000 created in a single day. And that is the footprint of buyers stepping in while the price is low, not backing away from it.
Binance holdings also back this up. The amount of XRP held on Binance just fell to a two-year low, down about 20% since late 2024. When coins leave exchanges it usually signals holders are moving them into private storage to hold for the long term, not preparing to sell. And Bitwise’s XRP ETF, the largest of them all, just crossed $500 million in total inflows—a milestone the ETF funds wouldn’t be hitting if institutions were truly heading for the door.
Is XRP’s Institutional Backing Actually Fading?
As things stand, XRP’s institutional backing isn’t fading. What’s fading is the flow of new money into the ETFs, not the belief behind it. The retail buying that padded those daily inflow numbers seems to be drying up as the CLARITY Act got delayed, and losing that steady stream is a big part of why XRP slipped back under $1.10.
The fading backing is what made it look like institutions were selling, but that isn’t happening. Big holders are still adding to their positions, coins are leaving exchanges to be locked away, and the largest XRP fund is still hitting new milestones.
The bottom line is that the XRP ETF buying that quietly supported the price for most of the year is currently being tested. But the deeper conviction is still in place, waiting for a reason to move again, whether that’s the CLARITY Act finally passing or the broader market turning back up.
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