XRP price climbed 28.5% in August, its best August since 2021 and a break from a month it has lost six times in nine years. Almost all the fuel arrived in the final two weeks.
History suggests September may hand some of it back.
Why Did the Price Rise 28% in August?
Exchange-traded fund buying accelerated in parallel with the move. US spot XRP funds took in $153.55 million during August, per SoSoValue data.
The timing is key here. Just $3.27 million arrived between August 3 and 14. The other $150.28 million came in the final two weeks, 46 times as much, and the buying is still running with nine straight positive sessions.
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That sum is small against XRP’s $87 billion market value, so it did not lift the price alone. May drew $130 million and XRP still fell. August is simply the first month where big flows and a big gain coincided.
Bitcoin’s own streak ended on Friday, so crypto ETF demand is being tested across the board. XRP’s has not broken. The problem is what a strong August has historically cost XRP the month after.
Will XRP Price Crash in September 2026?
In seven of the last eight years, XRP’s September moved opposite to its August. In five of the six years August fell, September rose. And both times August rose, September fell, losing 14% in 2020 and 19.6% in 2021.
Seasonality is a pattern for the XRP price prediction, not a rule, and eight years is a small sample. This year the wallet data points the same way, and it names the sellers.
Who Was Selling XRP During the Rally?
Santiment’s HODL Waves, which sort wallets by how long they have held a coin, show the rally changed hands. Wallets holding XRP for three to six months, meaning coins bought around March to May, cut their share of supply from 6.41% on August 8 to 5.76% at press time.
Wallets holding for one week to one month nearly doubled their share, from 1.68% on July 31 to 3.22% as of now. That explains the heaviest buying volume of the month came around the August 21 peak.
XRP did this before. Heavy buying marked the January 5 top, selling stayed quiet for weeks, and the XRP price then fell 53%.
21 August’s volume surged even higher, which makes one level on the chart decisive.
XRP Price Prediction for September
XRP trades near $1.36 and has stayed inside a falling channel since January. It sits below its 200-period exponential moving average (EMA), a trend line that weights recent prices more heavily, at $1.56.
The zone between $1.34 and $1.36 matters most, because the 100-period EMA and the first retracement level sit together there. Losing it opens $1.15, then $0.98 and $0.81. Repeating January’s fall from here would reach about $0.58.
As for the surge expectations, nothing improves until a 2-day close above $1.69, the August high. The Federal Reserve meets September 15 and 16 with fresh projections, which could work as the make-or-break catalyst.
Analyst’s View: The ETF money is real, but it arrived late and bought high. The wallets that sold had held since around March, when XRP traded close to today’s price, and were roughly 23% underwater by the end of June. They waited five months and left the moment the rally carried them back to level. September will show whether the new buyers are early or simply the last ones in.
Bitrue