XRP Crypto Gains Momentum with $176B Market Cap, ETF Buzz in August 2025

XRP, native cryptocurrency of the XRP Ledger (XRPL), remains an interesting piece in the crypto market, trading at around 2.96 and with a market capitalisation of 176.23 billion on August 29, 2025, and thus retaining its status as the third-largest cryptocurrency.

Even though XRP has experienced a minor decline of 0.03% in the last 24 hours, it has been resilient in last 7 days with a 3.20 percentage gain compared with 1.80 percent recorded by the wider crypto market.

The 24-hour volume and trade totalled $5.93 billion, indicating strong market activity, albeit 11.30 per cent lower than the previous day. This performance takes place in a disrupted crypto environment, where XRP is currently hovering around the $3 level, which it has repeatedly tested over the last few weeks.

ETF Hopes Fuel Optimism

Rumours of possible XRP spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have significantly influenced market sentiment. There are numerous applications with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for XRP ETFs by several issuers such as 21Shares, Bitwise, Canary Capital, and WisdomTree.

Analysts at Bloomberg, Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart, project a 95 per cent likelihood of approval, supporting the view that the SEC will provide feedback on revised S-1 filings and that the Trump administration will put crypto-friendly Paul Atkins in the chairmanship.

In August 2025, when Ripple won a legal battle against the SEC, which led to a statement that XRP sales on the public market could not be considered securities, a key obstacle to institutional adoption was eliminated, further driving ETF optimism. An ETF licence might reflect the 160 per cent Bitcoin gains after the ETF launch in 2024, and analysts expect XRP to rise to $5 or more by 2030 through regulatory tailwinds.

Institutional Moves and Ripple’s Strategic Advances

The institutional support of XRP is increasing, and the influential developments support its usefulness. Ripple’s Chief Legal Officer, Stuart Alderoty, emphasised that the company is strategically focused on global payment solutions, such as a Series B funding round for Singapore-based Tazapay, to scale cross-border payments across 70 countries.

Supported by Ripple and Circle, this initiative aims to utilise the low-cost, high-speed transactions of XRP to settle transactions in real-time. Besides, the market cap of the Ripple RLUSD stablecoin has increased by 49% quarter-on-quarter, as the XRPL real-world asset (RWA) market cap has reached an all-time high of $131.6 million.

In June 2025, XRP developers will be further strengthened by the introduction of an EVM-compatible sidechain, enabling the creation of Solidity-based decentralised applications (dApps) and expanding its DeFi ecosystem.

Whale Activity and Community Dynamics

On-chain data indicate contradictory indicators as XRP whales accumulated 750 million dollars of the tokens, with the exchange balances decreasing to an annual low. Nevertheless, the price consolidation is below 3, and long-term investors have been selling off 470 million since early August.

Despite this, although the cryptocurrency investigator ZachXBT called XRP the exit liquidity of insiders, XRP devotees have remained adamant, with analysts such as the UnknownDLT encouraging participants to hold onto their tokens until November, citing possible adoption waves associated with global ISO 20022 standards and ETFs.

The decentralised exchange and minimal transaction cost of $0.0002 in the XRP Ledger remains popular with enterprises, and XRP is a bridge asset to fully operational high-volume payments.

Future Outlook and Market Catalysts

In the future, the path of XRP would depend on the main catalysts. The next Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in September can have an effect on crypto prices, with a possible reduction of interest rates in support of risk assets such as XRP. Analysts forecast a bullish breakout above $3.33 and have speculated that the all-time high of $3.84 will be challenged.

However, others, including Coach JV, take a bold step and state that XRP may overtake Bitcoin and Ethereum in the market ranking. Nevertheless, there are risks, such as potential selling pressure resulting from Ripple’s monthly escrow releases of up to 1 billion XRP.

On Ripple, which has 4.56 billion XRP in free wallets and 37.13 billion in escrow, strategic sales may affect prices, but idle inventory will be returned to escrow, which will weigh down the overall supply. As XRP traverses these dynamics, its place in global finance and increasing institutional support will put it on the centre stage among investors in 2025.