$1.25 Billion Floods Into XRP—Can the Rally Defy Crypto’s Bearish Undertow?

XRP just pulled off a staggering $1.25 billion capital influx—its largest single-week haul since the 2021 bull run. Whale wallets are loading up, but the broader market’s dragging its feet.

Here’s the twist: While Ripple’s legal wins sparked the momentum, macro headwinds—Fed rate hikes, ETF outflows—keep choking crypto’s rebound. XRP’s 15% weekly surge looks heroic... until you spot Bitcoin’s dead-cat bounce at $62K.

Pro traders are hedging bets. ’Liquidity’s back, but not conviction,’ quips a hedge fund MD, eyeing derivatives data. ’This isn’t 2021—retail’s too busy paying rent to FOMO.’

Can XRP decouple? The chart says maybe. The macro says good luck. And your portfolio manager? Probably still buying Bitcoin.

Hot Capital spikes, but still lags past highs

According to Glassnode, XRP Hot capital spiked from $0.92 billion to $2.17 billion.

This marked a $1.25 billion increase, a surge of +134.9% within a week.

Naturally, this suggests rising speculative interest, with investors entering short-term trades expecting a price rebound.

Source: Glassnode

Despite the significant increase in capital inflow, the current metric is still about 72% lower than its peak of $7.66 billion in December 2024.

This indicates that market enthusiasm has not yet returned to previous peak levels, suggesting there is still considerable room for growth.

To match the speculative frenzy that the market experienced in late 2024, XRP requires nearly $5 billion in additional capital.

The surge in short-term investment capital flowing into XRP indicates renewed interest in the altcoin. Historically, a surge in demand leads to higher prices.

When the metric last peaked, XRP surged to $3.4 by January 2024. So, renewed capital Flow could, in theory, fuel another breakout.

Price performance doesn’t reflect the capital surge

While Hot Capital is showing signs of recovery, XRP is struggling on its price charts as bearish sentiments take hold.

In fact, XRP has dropped on daily and weekly charts, dipping by 2.65% and 1.62% respectively.

The ongoing decline suggests that the XRP markets currently lack genuine demand, as most buyers have withdrawn from the market.

Consequently, the altcoin’s Taker Buy-Sell Ratio has remained negative throughout the past week. This trend indicates that buyers have stepped back, allowing sellers to dominate the market.

Source: CryptoQuant

Sellers, especially those holding between 100k to 1 million XRP tokens, currently dominate the market. This cohort is solely dominating exchange inflow with 21.7 million tokens, followed by 10k-100k with 900k.

High Exchange Inflow from this cohort suggests that retailers are the most active sellers.

Source: CryptoQuant

Shorts take control as sentiment worsens

Those available in the market are aggressively shorting the altcoin. Thus, XRP’s total Funding Rate Aggregated by Exchange has turned negative again.

A negative Funding Rate means that shorts are dominating the market. As such, most participants are bearish and expecting prices to decline.

Source: Santiment

Recent market sentiment indicates a negative trend for XRP, as reflected in its Weighted Sentiment metric, which has recorded a negative value once again.

Over the past week, this metric turned positive only once on the 28th of April, with the other six days showing negative readings.

This development highlights a significant lack of confidence among traders regarding the altcoin’s future direction.

Source: Santiment

Simply put, although Hot Capital recovered in the past week, other aspects of the markets are yet to respond. As bearish sentiment lingers, XRP risks dipping toward $2.16, especially if selling continues to dominate.

However, if speculative capital keeps climbing, a rebound toward $2.3 could follow — provided market conviction returns.