Ripple is taking its USD-pegged stablecoin RLUSD into Turkey, one of the MENA region’s largest crypto markets, through partnerships with local exchanges BiLira, Bitexen and Bitlo. The move gives institutional clients access to regulated, dollar-backed assets for payments, tokenization and collateral management in a market that Chainalysis estimates generates nearly $200 billion in annual crypto trading volume. RLUSD itself has built a market capitalisation of more than $1.7 billion since its launch less than a year ago.
The expansion lands at a curious moment for XRP. The token changed hands near $1.26 on Tuesday, down 5.3% on the day and 42% lower over the past twelve months. Its 52-week low of $1.22 is only a few cents away, though the critical $1.25 support level has so far held. Yet on-chain data tell a different story. On 1 June, net inflows of 22.80 million XRP tokens hit centralised exchanges — the largest single-day deposit of the year — only for outflows to quickly overtake them. Market participants interpret this as a classic bear trap: short sellers pile in, while institutional buyers quietly absorb the supply. The Exchange Flow Balance indicator now shows net outflows dominating, a pattern that often precedes trend reversals.
Institutional appetite is indeed visible in the ETF channel. US spot XRP ETFs posted net inflows of $118.29 million in May, according to one report, while another put the figure at $131 million — in either case the strongest monthly showing of 2026. Cumulative institutional inflows now stand at roughly $1.6 billion. That demand helps explain why, despite the 32% year-to-date decline, the token has stabilised in a consolidation zone between $1.25 and $1.45. The gap to last July’s 52-week high of $3.56 remains a painful 64%, but the short side is getting crowded.
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Meanwhile, the XRP Ledger network continues to expand. Average daily transactions rose 35.3% in the first quarter to 2.48 million, according to Messari, and the market capitalisation of real-world assets on the XRPL surged 124.1% to $2.25 billion. On the derivatives front, Kalshi has filed to certify perpetual XRP futures in the US, pending CFTC approval, with reference rates from CF Benchmarks. And Ripple’s monthly escrow unlock on 1 June released 1 billion XRP — worth about $1.33 billion at the time — though a significant portion is typically re-locked.
The next regulatory catalyst looms in Washington. The US Senate is set to vote on the CLARITY Act, a bill that could provide federal legal clarity for digital assets and directly benefit XRP’s status. Analysts see the combination of record ETF inflows, network growth and a potential legislative breakthrough as the defining factor for the second half of 2026. Technically, if support at $1.28 holds — the local low hit on 1 June — the next resistance target sits at $1.60. A sustained break above that, fuelled by the present accumulation signals, could set the stage for a short squeeze. Whether the fundamentals are strong enough to overcome the macro headwinds will become clearer after the Senate’s decision.
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