XRP’s Paradoxical Profile: Institutional Inflows vs. Weak Price Chart
XRP is ending 2025 with a unique profile in the crypto market, characterized by record-breaking institutional inflows and a weak price chart. According to data from CoinShares, XRP investment products attracted approximately $70.2 million in net new assets in the final week of trading in December, pushing its monthly inflow to over $424 million. This makes it the best-performing crypto investment product of the month, outpacing Bitcoin and Ethereum products, which recorded $25 million in outflows and $241 million in outflows, respectively.
The spot price of XRP, however, tells a different story. At press time, XRP was trading at around $1.87, marking a 15% monthly decline and landing at the bottom of the performance chart of the 10 largest crypto assets. This divergence between institutional demand and weak price performance suggests a market that is quietly changing hands, shifting from retail momentum traders to model-driven institutional allocators.
ETF Flows and Institutional Demand
The demand for XRP investment products has been steady, with over $1 billion in net inflows since mid-October, when U.S.-listed spot XRP products began trading. This is in contrast to the choppy and volatile flows in older crypto ETPs, where profit-taking and de-risking were common themes at year-end. The Canary XRP ETF (XRPC) has been a bellwether for this new trade, accumulating over $300 million in assets since its launch and setting a record for first-day trading volume among U.S. ETFs in 2025.
The size of the fund is crucial, providing asset managers and model portfolio providers with a liquid, fungible vehicle that fits seamlessly into standard brokerage and custody workflows. Flows of this type are typically driven by processes, such as advisory platforms, multi-asset funds, and asset management networks, which only move once a product is listed, has a track record, and has proven acceptable spreads.
Ripple’s Broader Infrastructure Bet
Some investors have linked the renewed interest in XRP vehicles to a larger, structural bet on Ripple’s corporate strategy. The company has been aggressively moving into traditional financial infrastructure, announcing groundbreaking deals to acquire prime broker Hidden Road and treasury management firm GTreasury, as well as the launch of its dollar-backed stablecoin RLUSD. If fully integrated, these transactions would give Ripple a common presence spanning payments, custody, prime brokerage, and enterprise treasury software.
Proponents of the “full stack” thesis argue that these moves transform Ripple from a payments company into a vertically integrated provider of digital asset installations for banks and hedge funds. In this framework, XRP’s ETP flows are a proxy for participation in this infrastructure story, with buyers gaining access to a network that they expect to support the next generation of collateral and liquidity management.
Sentiment and Market Structure
The mechanical impact of inflows is most clearly visible in the “float,” the supply of tokens available for active trading. When an ETF or ETP issues new shares to meet demand, authorized participants must obtain XRP and deliver it to a custodian. As long as these shares are in circulation, the underlying tokens remain in cold storage and not on the order books of exchanges. This reduces the amount available for trading in the short term, creating a “spring-loaded” market structure.
Sentiment around XRP in public forums has deteriorated to levels rarely seen outside of bear markets, with negative comments significantly outweighing positive mentions in recent weeks. However, in past market cycles, such sentiment extremes have sometimes been preceded by strong contrarian recoveries. Overall, the picture that emerges is more of a market in flux than in consensus, with a growing gap between the way XRP trades and the state of capital that may matter more than any single week of performance.
For more information, visit https://cryptoslate.com/xrp-is-quietly-forming-a-spring-loaded-supply-setup-that-frustrated-retail-traders-are-completely-ignoring/
