XRP (CRYPTO:XRP) trades at $1.24 after gaining 20.7% in the past 24 hours. Thi si its biggest move since February 6, when it rose 21%. XRP has now passed USDC into fifth place by market value, and is worth $77.47 billion.
Three days ago the XRP price was at a cycle low of $0.9877 and nothing about the chart suggested a move like this. So what changed?
What Set Off the Crypto Rally
The XRP price moved on something outside crypto entirely. On Wednesday, August 19, the US Treasury under Secretary Scott Bessent said it would at least double the size of its long-end buyback operations, raising the cap from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation, running from September 9 through November 4.
The announcement followed the 30-year Treasury yield hitting 5.34% the day before, which is the highest since 2007. A yield that high means the government is paying more to borrow, and it pulls money out of riskier assets like crypto into bonds that suddenly pay well. Yields fell immediately after Treasury spoke, with the 30-year dropping to 5.196%, and the dollar weakened to a three-month low against other major currencies.
Gold traded near $4,449 an ounce over the same stretch, which is where money goes when investors expect currencies to lose value. 21Shares said markets were “smelling quantitative easing.” Buybacks are not quantitative easing, where a central bank creates new money to buy bonds. Treasury is retiring older securities with cash it already holds. However, the effect on long-term borrowing costs runs in the same direction, which is why traders treated it as a liquidity signal.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded about $517 million of net inflows on Wednesday, their strongest day since May, and that money arrived while most traders were positioned for prices to fall. The Fear and Greed Index had been reading 40, which counts as fear, so short positions had built up across the market.
About $1.44 billion of those were liquidated, rising to roughly $3.3 billion by today, more than any single day this year. A liquidation closes a trader’s position when their collateral no longer covers the loss, and closing a bet against the market means buying, so each one pushed prices higher and forced the next.
Every major cryptocurrency is now rising, with Bitcoin clearing $72,000 for the first time since early June to gain 10.6%, Solana adding 10.7% and Ethereum 17.7%, while the XRP price leads the majors at 20.7%.
XRP Cleared Five Resistance Levels in Three Days
The XRP price bottomed at $0.9877 on Monday with its relative strength index at 36. The RSI indicator measures buying against selling pressure and anything under 50 means sellers are in charge. The $1.00 support that had held for most of the month had flipped into resistance above the price.
But three sessions later XRP had cleared five levels that were holding it down. It reclaimed $1.00, then a descending trendline at $1.06, the 50-day moving average at $1.07 and the 100-day at $1.15. At $1.24 it now trades above the $1.20 ceiling that capped it in June and July.
XRP traded $5.21 billion over 24 hours, against $798 million on Monday. Buyers added $6.53 billion to XRP’s market value yesterday and another $4.56 billion today. That buying moved XRP past USDC into fifth on the crypto rankings, at $77.47 billion against the stablecoin’s $72.27 billion.
Meanwhile, Spot XRP ETFs have recorded $8.16 million in inflows across the first three days of this week, more than the whole of last week. The funds gathered $5.81 million on Tuesday alone, and that’s their biggest day since August 6. Those funds now hold more than $1 billion in net assets, up from $933 million on August 14.
Why XRP Outran Every Other Major Crypto
The XRP price has gained 20.7% against Bitcoin’s 10.6%, roughly double the move. Bitcoin now has spot ETFs, corporate treasuries and a settled regulatory status, so money treats it as the safe end of crypto. XRP has none of that yet, so it falls steeper when liquidity tightens and climbs higher when it loosens.
Moreover, Trump met crypto executives at the White House on Wednesday, among them Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and SEC Chair Paul Atkins, and pressed the Senate to pass the CLARITY Act, which would settle whether XRP and other cryptos fall under securities law.
However, XRP’s signals still say caution. Its relative strength index has crossed above 50, so buyers are in charge for the first time since June, but it needs to clear 60 to confirm a genuine buy signal, and the reading has averaged 38 since June.
XRP’s 200-day moving average is around $1.34, about 8% above the current price, with a falling trendline sloping toward it. Before that, XRP has to get through $1.30, the level it broke down from at the start of June. XRP fell from $1.55 to $0.99 across this decline and trades at $1.24 today, so it has taken back 45% of what it lost, less than half the drop.
Ethereum shows how far behind that leaves XRP. Ethereum cleared its own 200-day average during this rally, trading above $2,280 against an average near $2,115, while XRP sits 8% below its equivalent and is up 6.8% over 30 days against Ethereum’s 17.1%.
Can XRP Hold Fifth Place?
XRP’s lead over USDC is $5.20 billion, and a stablecoin’s market value only changes when its supply changes, so the ranking depends entirely on XRP holding these levels.
The rally also rests on something that has not happened yet. Treasury’s larger buybacks do not begin until September 9, so none of that money has entered the market. Liquidations are what carried the move, and those stop once the short positions are gone, which means fresh buyers have to take over from here.
XRP could hold fifth place through the end of August, since it would take a 6.7% fall to lose the ranking. Beyond that, the 30-year yield holding below 5.10% would do more for the XRP price than the September 15 CLARITY vote.
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