XRP just went somewhere it hasn't been in over seven months

XRP Hits Seven-Month High as Weekly Gains Mount

XRP climbed to $1.60 on September 22, its highest price since February, before settling near $1.57. The move puts the token up 22.7% over the past week, according to CoinMarketCap data. Trading volume rose 16.3% to $7.36 billion in 24 hours, and its market cap sat at $99.05 billion, just short of the $100 billion threshold.

The latest leg higher is part of a broader recovery that has gathered pace through August and September. Crypto.news notes that $XRP spent most of the summer grinding between $0.90 and $1.10, and that the August rally, which pushed the token from $1.00 to above $1.55 in under two weeks, is the first sustained price move that correlates with improving on-chain metrics rather than pure speculation. Ripple's institutional momentum, including its integration with Stripe's AI payment tools and the continued growth of its RLUSD stablecoin, has provided a fundamental backdrop for the move.

Market Context and What Comes Next

The rally did not happen in isolation. Yahoo Finance reports that $XRP posted a 28.5% gain in August, its strongest August performance since 2021, with ETF inflows accelerating sharply in the final two weeks of that month. US spot XRP funds took in $153.55 million during August, per SoSoValue data cited by Yahoo Finance, with the bulk arriving in concentrated bursts.

Despite the headline figure, some caution is warranted. Historical seasonality shows that in seven of the last eight years, XRP's September performance moved in the opposite direction to August. The $100 billion market cap level represents a near-term test of sentiment, and a sustained close above it would mark a significant psychological milestone for the asset. Whether fresh buyers can absorb supply at these levels, or whether short-term holders rotate out as they did in late August, is the key question heading into the final week of September.

$XRP is the native digital asset of the XRP Ledger, an open-source blockchain launched in 2012. It is used primarily as a bridge asset for cross-border payments and powers Ripple's on-demand liquidity corridors.

Sources:
CoinMarketCap: XRP Price and Market Data
Crypto.news: XRP Price Prediction and Market Analysis 2026
Yahoo Finance: XRP Price Prediction for September 2026