XRP climbed as much as 67% this week.
That is the strongest weekly performance since November 2024. Traders tied the rally to a US Treasury buyback expansion and a loose “curve control” narrative on long-end rates.
Depending on entry point, weekly gains ran between 30% and 67%. A single-day pop hit roughly 10.4% on August 20, according to CryptoBriefing. CoinDesk ran a different number in its headline: 50% weekly surge. The token pushed into a $1.30 to $1.60 intraday range. That is a sharp reversal from the sub-$1 zone where it had been trading.
The short side got crushed.
More than $3 billion in crypto short positions were liquidated during the surge. Bitcoin shorts accounted for roughly $2.75 billion of that total, CryptoBriefing reported. The data source for the liquidation figure was not named in the article.
The catalyst narrative is macro.
On August 19, the Treasury announced it would raise the minimum size of its liquidity-support buybacks for nominal coupon securities. The floor moves from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation. Effective September 9. The 30-year Treasury yield retreated from a 19-year high of 5.337% in the sessions that followed.
Traders labeled the dynamic “curve control.”
The buybacks effectively cap how high long-end yields can climb without the Federal Reserve formally intervening. Market participants also called it “QE Lite” — the Treasury buying its own debt rather than the Fed expanding its balance sheet, but with the same end result: more liquidity, lower long-term borrowing costs, and a tailwind for risk assets.
Whether that narrative is the real driver or a convenient frame for a broader crypto bid is an open question. Bitcoin pushed past $68,000 in the same stretch. Altcoins followed.
XRP-specific flows added fuel.
Whale accumulation accelerated during the rally. Large holders reportedly added rather than selling into strength. Large wallets were accumulating near $0.99 before the catalyst materialized, according to CryptoBriefing. ETF holdings of XRP approached 1 billion tokens. The Fear & Greed Index swung from cautious territory toward neutral and greed.
The attribution is thin in places.
The whale-accumulation and ETF-holdings claims do not name an on-chain data provider or a fund disclosure. The liquidation total is not tied to a specific source like Coinglass. The causal link between Treasury buybacks and XRP’s move is trader narrative, not independently established. XRP rode a market-wide risk bid that lifted bitcoin first.
The buyback expansion takes effect September 9. That makes the liquidity injection recurring rather than one-off. Holders, as ever, are divided on whether that is a floor or a coiled spring.
