XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) has spiked from $1 to a high of $1.32 on Thursday, propelled by rising XRP Ledger transaction activity and aggressive whale accumulation following Bitcoin‘s (CRYPTO: BTC) rally to $72,000.

XRP Rallies but What’s Next for XRP ETFs?

One pseudonymous market commentator noted that the surge is XRP’s biggest 48-hour gain since March 2025, making the altcoin the top gainer on the crypto table over the past 24 hours.

However, U.S. spot XRP exchange-traded products absorbed just 14.8% of the increase in circulating XRP supply during the first half of 2026. They were net sellers during two of the six months.

May offered a more encouraging signal, with ETP demand absorbing more than half of newly circulating supply, 21Shares noted in its H1 2026 Earnings report.

At the current annualized pace of roughly $588 million, TP demand covers only about one-seventh of annual net XRP supply.

The report pointed out that XRP is at a "genuine transition point" and the curiosity remains if the assembled infrastructure will generate the collateral demand and DeFi activity needed to close the gap between falling fee revenue and stable user activity.

Metrics Flash Conflicting Signals

XRP Ledger settled $159.9 billion in transaction volume during the first half of 2026, but revenue dropped 81.6% year-over-year to $1.18 million from $6.43 million.

Much of the decline came from areas outside ordinary transfers. Only about 10.6% of the ledger’s reported H1 revenue benefited XRP holders through token burns.

While revenue contracted, the XRP Ledger’s stablecoin base expanded 1,131% year-over-year.

Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin reached $1.56 billion in total supply as of June 30, with 52% residing on XRPL, compared with roughly 10% a year earlier.

That expansion could provide liquidity infrastructure for two areas central to XRPL’s institutional ambitions, decentralized finance and tokenized real-world assets.

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