XRP ETF Buying Has Dropped 96% Since Launch: Can Inflows Reach Standard Chartered’s $8 Billion Forecast?
Sam DaoduSun, August 16, 2026 at 9:02 PM GMT+3 6 min read
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XRP ETFs recorded $27.29 million in July, 96% below the $666.61 million they gathered in their first month, leaving the funds $6.5 billion short of Standard Chartered's $8 billion first-year forecast.
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Standard Chartered slashed its year end XRP price prediction by 65% to $2.80, even though cumulative ETF inflows already cleared the $1.15 billion trigger condition.
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For XRP ETFs to reach $8 billion, the funds would have to recordroughly $2.2 billion a month in inflows until November 13.
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XRP (CRYPTO:XRP) Exchange Traded Funds gathered over $600 million in their first month of trading back in November 2025, and recorded approximately $500 million by December. Standard Chartered had forecast that XRP ETFs would pull in $4 billion to $8 billion in inflows in their first year of trading.
However, the XRP price has fallen 46% since January 2026, and the inflows also slowed significantly. The funds saw around $27 million in inflows in July, marking a 96% drop from the first trading month, and in nine months XRP ETFs have gathered $1.51 billion in total.
The funds first traded on November 13, 2025, which leaves XRP ETFs three months to capture another $6.49 billion to reach Standard Chartered's $8 billion projection.
How Far XRP ETF Buying Has Fallen
XRP ETFs were the fastest crypto ETF to cross $1 billion after Bitcoin, recording $666.61 million at launch in November and another $499.91 million in December. However, inflows slowed by January. The funds recorded $15.59 million for the whole month, which is 3% of what came in during December.
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Inflows have recovered in short spells since then, but none has managed to reach the pace of the first two trading months. XRP ETFs recorded $58.09 million in February, then investors pulled $31.16 million back out in March. Inflows climbed again to $81.59 million in April and $131.94 million in May—which remains the best month of 2026—before falling to $59.46 million in June and $27.29 million in July.
Through the first ten trading days of August, the funds have recorded $3.27 million so far, which works out to roughly $1 million a week. Meanwhile, spot Bitcoin ETFs currently pull in more than $400 million on a good day, which is over 400 times what XRP funds now record in a week.
In total, XRP ETFs have recorded $1.51 billion in inflows since launch, but the funds are currently worth $933 million. That puts them 43% below their peak of $1.65 billion in early January, because the XRP price fell 46% over the same stretch.
Why XRP Hit Standard Chartered's Target and the Price Still Fell
Standard Chartered forecast back in April 2025 that XRP ETFs would pull in $4 billion to $8 billion in their first twelve months, and raised that a month later to $4.3 billion to $8.4 billion. The bank also published XRP price predictions built on those inflows, forecasting $5.50 by the end of 2025, $8 by the end of 2026, and $12.50 by 2028. Its $8 target came with one condition, which was cumulative ETF inflows above $1.15 billion plus regulatory clarity.
XRP ETFs cleared that threshold on December 30, seven weeks after launching, and cumulative inflows now stand at $1.51 billion. However, the XRP price trades at $1.00, roughly an eighth of the $8 Standard Chartered expected by the end of this year.
The bank cut its end of 2026 target in February, dropping it by 65% to $2.80 after the XRP price fell to $1.16. That was its largest reduction across any crypto asset it covers, and it blamed ETF outflows, tight Fed policy and capitulation-prone sentiment.
The problem is what a cumulative figure measures. It counts everything that ever arrived, including the $666.61 million rush in the first three weeks, and it keeps counting that money forever. XRP ETFs cleared $1.15 billion in November and December alone, so the condition was met before inflows slowed and has stayed met through eight months of inflows slowing to a trickle.
What It Would Take for XRP ETFs to Reach $8 Billion
XRP ETFs have recorded $1.51 billion since launch, so the funds have to gather another $6.49 billion in inflows before the one-year window closes on November 13.
That works out to roughly $2.2 billion a month for three straight months, or more than three times the $666.61 million the ETFs recorded in their best month ever. Even the lesser $4 billion target would need about $850 million in monthly ETF inflows.
The funds have averaged $46 million a month across 2026, and at that pace they would not reach $8 billion until 2038. At July's $27.29 million inflow, it would take about 20 years, and at August's pace of roughly $1 million a week, closer to 79.
Standard Chartered's revised $7 XRP price prediction for 2027 depends on the CLARITY Act passing and inflows scaling past $4 billion, and the Senate cloture vote on the bill is set for September 15.
XRP ETFs recorded $666.61 million in a single month once, so the buyers exist. What's left now is a reason for them to start investing at an even bigger size than that. The CLARITY Act is what would trigger such moves by making XRP's commodity status permanent law, which is what institutions need before buying in size.
Can XRP ETF Inflows Reach $8 Billion?
XRP ETF inflows will not reach $8 billion by November. The funds would need three straight months at more than triple their best month ever, and that is not happening.
The September 15 cloture vote is the only thing that would make buyers move into XRP ETFs in size again before the window closes, and Polymarket prices the CLARITY Act's chances of passing this year near 16%. Without it, XRP ETFs could finish their first year closer to $1.6 billion than $4 billion, which would leave them short of even the bottom of Standard Chartered's forecast by more than half.
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