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What It Means for XRP Investors and Prices

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What It Means for XRP Investors and Prices


Ripple Labs released a major update in Feb. regarding its XRP Ledger (XRPL). But will that be enough to save XRP’s price from Bitcoin’s stiff correction?

XRP is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies worldwide. Its market cap is neck-and-neck with BNB to rank number four by this metric.

Its main use case is fast, low-fee cross-border payments, but the XRP Ledger is opening up an entirely new use case for XRP tokens—decentralized finance (DeFi).

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The February update from the official team at Ripple Labs signals a significant shift in the ecosystem’s fortunes. But real quick, before diving into the update—

Here’s how XRP’s price reacted after Ripple released the update on these exciting new developments: on Friday, Feb. 13, XRP traded for a daily average price of $1.35 before it surged to over $1.65 on Sunday.

“Institutional DeFi on XRPL”

The Ripple Labs update teased “Institutional DeFi on XRPL,” in a headline that promised the network will scale real-world finance with XRP at the core. The key selling point for Ripple investors and developers in this announcement is that these updates make the XRP Ledger well-suited for institutional-grade players.

Serious financial firms with big clients in New York City and London can rely on this technology to better meet the needs of their business. Or at the very least, that’s what the XRP team states. The note opened with a quick TLDR; summary highlighting XRP’s utility in liquidity and credit markets as well as for payments.

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This referred to On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) powered by Ripple. This platform feature allows large institutions or individuals moving large funds to send them via RippleNet using XRP tokens.

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But the exciting updates included:

  • MPT (fungible Multi-Purpose Tokens for RWA tokenization)
  • Permissioned Domains for access management
  • Lending Protocol for native on-ledger XRP credit markets
  • Confidential Transfers for institutional-grade privacy
  • Ripple support for foreign exchange (FX) markets

Meanwhile, sophisticated new tools such as Credentials, Token Escrow, and Batch Transactions will help enterprise-grade clients stay compliant with financial regulators and automate on-chain workflows.

“The foundation for the next generation of blockchain-based financial infrastructure is being built, with XRP as the backbone,” Ripple Labs said.

Fine-Tuning XRP Utility to Purpose

In addition to the feature set for institutions, which forms the backbone of the next-generation XRP ecosystem on the ledger, Ripple also announced that XRPL now comes equipped with new developer tools to keep open development humming along.

Livenet Explorer is a developer tool that enables institutions and blockchain developers to visualize real-time on-chain activity, balances, and token flows. Meanwhile, XRPL Devnet Tools will help blockchain developers test features such as MPTs, escrow contracts, batch transactions, and lending protocols before deploying Dapps to the mainnet.

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On the payments and FX side, permissioned domains will help build walled-off environments on the open blockchain with controlled credentials. Moreover, this can support KYC and AML tools for regulatory compliance.

XRPL is also getting ready to unlock balance sheets by optimizing collateral and capital velocity. This will be possible through token escrow for conditional settlement programmed right into XRP smart contracts.

One of Ripple’s big points in the February update is MPTs, or Multi-Purpose Tokens. Ripple says MPTs are the future of tokenization on XRPL. They can support sophisticated financial instruments such as bonds and funds while also handling metadata and parameters without requiring custom contracts.

What It Means for XRP Prices

For institutional and independent blockchain developers, here are some considerable developments. They may draw more participants and large financial firms into the XRP ecosystem.

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But what does it mean for cryptocurrency investors?

During the week following the update announcement, XRP’s price outperformed the rest of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap, indicating the market perceived the news positively.

However, as CryptoPotato reported, the state of the industry is currently predominantly negative in terms of price action. As a matter of fact, the popular Fear and Greed Index tapped Extreme Fear territory with a score of just 5 a few days ago – the lowest in the last eight years. During times like these, good news does not move markets as much as it does in bull markets.

While the update is undoubtedly sound and important, it is unlikely to cause any significant price change, at least in the short term.

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Crypto World

XRP investors likely bought the dip after the recent crash

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XRP: exchange reserve on Binance. (CryptoQuant)

Payments-focused cryptocurrency XRP is rising faster than bitcoin and ether after investors hunted for bargains post early-month crash.

XRP’s price has rallied 38% to $1.55 since hitting a low of $1.12 on Feb. 6, according to CoinDesk data. Prices have jumped by more than 5% in the past 24 hours alone.

This performance puts it well ahead of both bitcoin and ether, which have recovered roughly 15% since Feb. 6. As of writing, bitcoin and ether changed hands at $69,420 and $2,020, respectively.

XRP’s bitcoin-beating rally tracks signs of dip-buying on Binance following the Feb. 6 crash. CryptoQuant data indicates Binance’s XRP reserves dropped sharply by 192.37 million XRP to 2.553 billion between February 7 and 9. The 7% slide marked the lowest level since January 2024, and holdings have remained stable since then.

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XRP: exchange reserve on Binance. (CryptoQuant)

XRP: exchange reserve on Binance. (CryptoQuant)

Analysts typically associate a drop in exchange balances with investor accumulation. The logic is that investors prefer to take direct custody of coins rather than keep them on exchanges when intending to hold them long-term.

Sudden, sharp withdrawals can reduce available supply, opening the door to a price rally. Historical trends reinforce this view. XRP rallied sharply from $0.60 to over $2.40 in the final two months of 2024 as the balance held on exchanges slid faster.

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WLFI May Have Signaled Crypto Crash Hours Before Bitcoin: Study

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WLFI May Have Signaled Crypto Crash Hours Before Bitcoin: Study

World Liberty Financial Token (WLFI), a DeFi governance token affiliated with the Trump family, may have signaled a major market breakdown hours before Bitcoin moved, according to a new analysis by data provider Amberdata.

The report examines trading activity on Oct. 10, 2025, when roughly $6.93 billion in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated in under an hour. Bitcoin (BTC) fell about 15% and Ether (ETH) dropped roughly 20%, while smaller tokens lost as much as 70%.

Amberdata found that WLFI began a sharp decline more than five hours before the broader market downturn. At the time, Bitcoin was still trading near $121,000 and showed little immediate stress.

“A five-hour lead time is hard to dismiss as coincidence,” Mike Marshall, who authored the report, told Cointelegraph. “That duration is what separates a genuinely actionable warning from a statistical artefact,” he added.

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Related: Senators ask Bessent to probe $500M UAE stake in Trump-linked WLFI

WLFI anomalies before the selloff

Researchers analyzed three unusual patterns, including a surge in trading activity, a sharp divergence from Bitcoin and extreme leverage, to determine whether WLFI signaled stress before the broader market selloff.

WLFI’s hourly volume jumped to roughly $474 million, about 21.7 times its normal level, within minutes of tariff-related political news. Meanwhile, funding rates on WLFI perpetual futures reached about 2.87% every eight hours, equivalent to an annualized borrowing cost near 131%.

WLFI funding rating. Source: Amberdata

The study does not claim insider trading occurred. Instead, it argues the way crypto markets are structured can make certain assets matter more than their size suggests.

WLFI’s holder base is concentrated among politically connected participants, the report says, unlike Bitcoin’s widely distributed ownership. Marshall said the trading pattern appeared “instrument-specific,” meaning activity was focused on WLFI rather than across the broader crypto complex.

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“If this were superior analysis (sophisticated participants reading the tariff headlines faster and drawing better conclusions) you’d expect to see that reflected more broadly,” he said. “What we actually saw was concentrated activity in WLFI first.”

The timing is notable. Trading volume accelerated roughly three minutes after public tariff news. Marshall said such speed suggests prepared execution rather than retail traders interpreting headlines in real time.

The link between WLFI and the broader market drop comes down to leverage. Many crypto trading platforms let traders use several assets as collateral for borrowed positions. When WLFI fell sharply, the value of that collateral dropped, forcing traders to sell liquid assets like Bitcoin and Ether to cover their positions. Those sales pushed prices lower and triggered further liquidations across the market.

WLFI crashed ahead of Bitcoin. Source: Amberdata

Related: Trump family’s WLFI plans FX and remittance platform: Report

WLFI reacted faster than Bitcoin to stress

Amberdata’s data shows WLFI’s realized volatility reached nearly eight times that of Bitcoin during the episode, making it particularly sensitive to stress. Researchers argue that structurally fragile, highly leveraged assets may move first during market shocks.

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Marshall said the findings should not be interpreted as proof that WLFI can reliably predict downturns. The analysis covers a single event, and more data would be needed to establish statistical consistency. Still, he believes the behavior is significant.