by Coinstrooper Crypto Articles
Quick Take
  • XRP price is down about 2% on the day, yet it just bounced roughly 4% off its August low as South Korea keeps stacking bids under the market.
  • XRP price still trades inside a falling channel that has capped every rally since May 14, 2026.
  • South Korea, however, is flashing an unusually tidy set of early signals.
  • XRP ranks third among 275 Korean won markets on Upbit by 24-hour trading volume, behind only Tether and Bitcoin.

What Happened

South Korea is Buying XRP

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Heavier Korean bids indicate who is buying, but momentum indicates whether selling is finally fading.

Market Context

XRP price is down about 2% on the day, yet it just bounced roughly 4% off its August low as South Korea keeps stacking bids under the market.

The bounce is not a confirmed reversal. XRP price still trades inside a falling channel that has capped every rally since May 14, 2026. South Korea, however, is flashing an unusually tidy set of early signals.

XRP ranks third among 275 Korean won markets on Upbit by 24-hour trading volume, behind only Tether and Bitcoin. Few altcoins matter more to South Korea’s retail traders.

Rank measures attention, not direction, so the order book fills the gap. Within 1% of the market price, combined Upbit and Bithumb bids outweigh asks by roughly two to one, a gap of about 34%.

That ratio simply compares resting buy orders against sell orders near the current price. A two-to-one skew means buyers have posted far more nearby liquidity than sellers, a sign of real demand.

Korea is also paying a small premium to the global price on Bybit, near the top of its seven-day range. The lean is bullish, though still too thin to call a full premium event.

Momentum is Turning as XRP Price Stops Falling Hard

XRP price keeps making lower lows, but the selling is losing power. Since early June, price carved a marginally lower low into August while momentum made a higher low.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI), a momentum gauge that tracks how fast recent moves are running, climbed from below 20 in early June to the low 40s at the August low. That split between falling price and rising momentum is a classic bullish divergence.

Price already reacted, rebounding about 4% from its August 1 low, echoing a recent surge in dip buying.

XRP Price Levels That Decide the Reversal

Here, the setup is won or lost. XRP price needs a daily close above $1.09 to break the falling channel and confirm the shift.

Why It Matters

Whales and ETFs Back the South Korea Signal

Those are wallets holding between 100 million and 1 billion XRP, and the move suggests large holders may have added to weak momentum, though such shifts can also reflect wallet relabeling.

The run improved from a $7.18 million outflow to $6.78 million, then $8.15 million, then $14.86 million, matching the broader August XRP outlook.

Details

Leverage is not driving it either. Bybit perpetual funding sits near +0.006%, only mildly positive. Funding is the fee long traders pay shorts to hold a position, and this reading is far from overheated.

If momentum is turning, the next test is whether large holders and funds agree.

The turn is not standing alone. Santiment data shows the share of XRP held by the 100 million to 1 billion cohort jumped from 10.66% to 11.98% around August 1.

Fund demand is improving too. XRP spot ETF inflows reached $14.86 million in the week ending July 31, the strongest in four weeks.

Institutions are not flooding in, but the direction of demand has clearly changed.

Bids, momentum, and flows all point one way, leaving a single barrier on the chart.