XRP Weekly - Sunday, 4 January
XRP up 17% in a week. Don't forget to vote in the poll!
The Consensus
🔒 Ripple re-locks 700M XRP: Supply increased by only 0.46% as most tokens returned to long-term escrow.
🛡️ XRPL launches institutional DeFi: New Q1 privacy and lending features aim to attract regulated global banks.
💸 XRP targets SWIFT volume: Processing 14% of annual SWIFT flows would move $21 trillion via RippleNet.
The Chart Watch
Last week - Short-Term XRP Chart (17% gain trade ✅)
This was the chart featured in last week’s newsletter, where we highlighted a potential short-term bottom. In strongly bearish conditions and extended downtrends, the key is identifying when sentiment may be ready to flip. Interestingly, in the poll below, many readers turned bearish that week and that’s exactly when XRP broke trend and rallied 17%.
As always, these charts are not financial advice. They reflect what I’m watching. In this case, we caught the trend break, identified strong support around $1.83, and outlined a clear low-risk, high-reward setup. The take-profit was hit cleanly.
Now attention shifts to the $2.30 area. I don’t want to get carried away just because sentiment has turned bullish again, but structurally, that target remains valid if momentum holds.
Last week’s charts:
Now:
That trend break has occurred. The focus shifts to whether $2.00 holds and, critically, whether price can remain above $1.86. If a base forms, upside scenarios toward $2.30 and potentially $3 remain valid. There are no guarantees. This could mark the end of the bear phase or simply a pause within it. Be prepared for both outcomes.
For full upside and downside targets, revisit last week’s newsletter.
Poll
Last Week’s Results
❌ 48% of you were bearish, however from last Sunday to today XRP is actually up ~13%.
Please do keep voting, it will be interesting to analyze this data in the future and see if we can draw any trends from this.
The Ripple Effect
🔒 The Billion-XRP Unlock: Behind the Smoke and Mirrors
On January 1, Ripple executed its scheduled monthly escrow release, unlocking 1 billion XRP (roughly $1.84 billion). While headlines often paint this as a massive supply dump, the mechanics tell a different story. Within hours, Ripple moved 700 million XRP, 70% of the release, back into new escrow contracts, effectively pushing them to the back of the queue. This resulted in a net supply increase of only 0.46%. Interestingly, a sarcastic memo attached to the transaction by a third-party troll claimed Ripple was “selling billions for acquisitions,” but on-chain data confirms this was a spoof. The real story was the decision to lock 500 million of those tokens until November 2028, a multi-year commitment that removes significant liquid supply from the market (Yahoo Finance).
This transparency is built into the XRP Ledger. Since 2017, these monthly unlocks have been a predictable framework to prevent sudden supply floods. What’s shifting now is how the market absorbs this. Despite the unlock, XRP’s price actually climbed from $1.84 to over $2.00 by January 3, likely fueled by the 57% drop in exchange-held XRP reserves over the last year. As exchange balances hit eight-year lows (down to 1.6 billion tokens), the usual “supply shock” narrative is being replaced by a supply squeeze. Ripple’s multi-year locks suggest they’re leaning into alternative revenue from RLUSD stablecoin partnerships and recent acquisitions like GTreasury, rather than aggressive token sales.
🛡️ Privacy and DeFi: XRPL’s 2026 Shift
Ripple just laid out the 2026 playbook, and it’s a massive pivot in how they’re positioning the ledger. Engineering lead J. Ayo Akinyele confirmed that the focus is moving beyond simple payments into a full-scale institutional DeFi hub. We’re looking at four major upgrades: zero-knowledge (ZK) privacy, native programmability, cross-chain interoperability, and on-chain lending. This is a big deal because it targets the specific “confidentiality” hurdles that have kept big banks on the sidelines. For example, the launch of Confidential Multi-Purpose Tokens (MPTs) in Q1 2026 will allow firms to manage collateral without broadcasting their sensitive balance sheets to the entire public (CoinDesk).
This roadmap isn’t happening in a vacuum. It follows the December 2025 news that the OCC gave a conditional green light for the Ripple National Trust Bank. This regulatory win means Ripple can manage its RLUSD stablecoin reserves under federal supervision, which directly feeds into the new on-chain lending protocol. By building lending and ZK-privacy directly into the ledger’s core rather than relying on external smart contracts, Ripple is trying to offer a “cleaner” and more secure alternative to Ethereum for regulated finance. Watch the validator voting in late January 2026, as that will be the first real test of how quickly the community is ready to activate these DeFi features.
💸 XRP’s $21 Trillion Target
Brad Garlinghouse set a high bar on June 11, 2025, when he projected that the XRP Ledger could capture 14% of SWIFT’s annual volume within five years. That’s roughly $21 trillion in annual settlement value. While we’re nowhere near that target yet, momentum is real: Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) processed $1.3 billion in Q2 2025 alone, building on $15 billion in annual 2024 flows. While SWIFT relies on a slow messaging system that takes days to settle, XRP handles the actual liquidity in 3–5 seconds for a fraction of a cent. With over 300 banks now on RippleNet, the infrastructure for this shift is already in place. It suggests XRP is moving from a speculative asset to a core piece of financial plumbing (Finance Yahoo).
We should keep an eye on how this volume translates to the public price. Even with $1 billion in XRP ETF inflows between November and December 2025, the price hasn’t always followed suit. In fact, XRP dropped 48% from its July 2025 peak despite that record institutional interest. This happens because many institutions buy their XRP directly from Ripple via over-the-counter (OTC) deals, which keeps that demand off public exchanges. There’s also an ecosystem shift to watch: Ripple’s USD stablecoin, RLUSD, currently has 82% of its $1.26 billion supply on Ethereum instead of the XRP Ledger. If big players keep choosing Ethereum for stablecoin liquidity, XRP may stay focused strictly on its cross-border bridge niche. The real signal to watch for is whether institutional demand eventually moves toward public exchanges.
Seen on X
Sensei’s Insight: J. Ayo Akinyele is one of those names that actually matters if you care about where XRP is going next. As RippleX’s Senior Director of Engineering and a Johns Hopkins–trained cryptographer who previously built privacy-preserving payment rails at Bolt Labs, he’s the intellectual force behind Ripple’s privacy-first pivot. His view is simple but consequential: institutions will not put real assets on public blockchains unless programmable privacy is built in from day one, and that belief is now shaping the XRP Ledger’s roadmap.
Sensei’s Insight: When Franklin Templeton publicly frames XRP as a foundational building block, that is institutional language, not marketing fluff. This is how legacy finance categorises assets it expects to persist across cycles, not trade around headlines. Price action may still look unimpressive, but structurally this matters far more: XRP is being positioned as infrastructure, and infrastructure adoption is measured in years, not candles.
Debunked
The claim that Times Square lighting patterns or bulb counts are covert signals for XRP is a textbook case of pattern-seeking, not market insight. Stage lighting for New Year’s Eve broadcasts is designed for symmetry, camera balance, and sponsor visibility, not numerology. No broadcaster, lighting contractor, or city authority embeds crypto messages into live television infrastructure, and no evidence has ever shown otherwise.
This is apophenia amplified by social media. When investors desperately want confirmation, random coincidences start looking intentional. The same blue lights were used in prior years, across multiple events, and across unrelated broadcasts. There is no institutional pathway where Ripple, ABC, or NYC officials would coordinate secret market signals via LED placement.
These posts exist for engagement, not information. They convert coincidence into conviction, generate retweets, and keep holders emotionally anchored while nothing fundamental changes. XRP’s future will be decided by regulation, liquidity, adoption, and volumes, not stage lighting aesthetics. If a thesis relies on hidden messages instead of balance sheets and settlement data, it isn’t alpha. It’s content bait.
The Horizon
Monday, January 5
ISM Manufacturing PMI (10:00 AM ET / 15:00 GMT):
The first major macro print of the year. Consensus sits at 48.3, keeping U.S. manufacturing in contraction territory.
Factory Orders (10:00 AM ET / 15:00 GMT):
Delayed October data. Provides a backward-looking check on demand before year-end.
Tuesday, January 6
Fed Speaker - Tom Barkin (8:25 AM ET / 13:25 GMT):
Richmond Fed President speaks on the 2026 economic outlook. Markets listen for policy tone after December’s rate cut.
No major economic data releases.
Wednesday, January 7
ADP Employment Report (8:15 AM ET / 13:15 GMT):
Private payrolls preview ahead of Friday’s jobs report. Consensus around 45k following November’s sharp contraction.
ISM Services PMI (10:00 AM ET / 15:00 GMT):
A critical read on the services sector. Consensus near 52.0; weakness here would raise broader growth concerns.
JOLTS Job Openings (10:00 AM ET / 15:00 GMT):
November openings expected to hold near 7.6 million, tracking labor market normalization.
Thursday, January 8
Initial Jobless Claims (8:30 AM ET / 13:30 GMT):
The cleanest real-time labor signal. Consensus at 205k.
U.S. Trade Balance (8:30 AM ET / 13:30 GMT):
Delayed October figures provide insight into net export drag on Q4 GDP.
Consumer Credit (3:00 PM ET / 20:00 GMT):
A snapshot of household borrowing trends through the holiday period.
Friday, January 9 - The Key Event Day
Nonfarm Payrolls (8:30 AM ET / 13:30 GMT):
The week’s headline event. Consensus calls for +55k jobs.
Unemployment Rate (8:30 AM ET / 13:30 GMT):
Expected to tick down to 4.5%.
Housing Starts (8:30 AM ET / 13:30 GMT):
Catch-up release for September and October data.
University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment (Prelim) (10:00 AM ET / 15:00 GMT):
An early read on January consumer confidence.
As always Sensei, informative with a clear structure for us to understand. Much appreciated and makes me much better set with what's to come this week.