XRP price is up about $2.17 today, representing an increase of 5.43% in the past 24 hours. But the big problem gripping the community is simple. If 6 XRP ETFs have been launched and millions of dollars are flowing in every day, why isn't XRP exploding higher?
New ETFs from Amplify, Bitwise, Canary, Rex-Osprey, Franklin Templeton, and Grayscale have all been released in the past few weeks. Many were expecting a breakout towards $3. Instead, XRP fell. It wasn't alone. The entire crypto market corrected sharply, with Bitcoin falling towards $80,000.
Here's what's actually going on.
ETF inflows are not the main force moving the market
Bloomberg analyst James Seifert addressed the turmoil directly. He explained that investors are making the same mistakes they made in the early days of the Bitcoin ETF era. An ETF can have hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into it, but that doesn't automatically cause its price to rise.
The main driver of cryptocurrency prices remains spot market activity on exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken. This is where the real buying and selling pressure forms. ETFs are just one part of a much larger market. These add liquidity and structure, but do not overwhelm the behavior of traders and holders in the spot market.
ETFs currently utilize creation and redemption, but impact remains limited
Since September, new public listing standards have allowed issuers to surrender physical assets to create ETF shares. This applies to Ethereum, Bitcoin, XRP, Solana, Hedera, and Litecoin products. This makes the system more efficient and transparent.
But Seifert said the change doesn't suddenly give ETFs the power to set prices. It simply ensures that they are backed by real assets rather than synthetic exposures.
Much of the ETF's volume is not new money
One of the most overlooked details is the source of an ETF's inflows. The majority of the XRP ETF's initial volume came from investors who already owned XRP. They didn't buy new coins. They simply moved their holdings into ETFs for reasons such as estate planning, tax benefits, or long-term storage.
When someone moves $50 million worth of XRP from a hardware wallet to an ETF, it is registered as an ETF inflow. However, this does not create new purchasing pressure in the market.
This is why millions of dollars appear to be flowing in even though the price is barely moving.
At the same time, the broader cryptocurrency market corrects.
XRP did not fail in isolation. Bitcoin is nearing $80,000 and altcoins are falling. The market-wide correction has cast a shadow over ETF launches. Even large inflows were unable to counter sector-wide selling pressure.
When the macro environment weakens, ETFs alone cannot sustain the market.
SEC delay slows altcoin ETF ecosystem
Another factor was the 42-day government shutdown. This was the longest forced suspension in U.S. history, and SEC operations were temporarily halted. This delayed the processing of new altcoin ETF applications and slowed market expansion.
Now that the SEC is back, the timeline is moving again, with several more products lining up for approval.
