XRP price at $1.36 as Upbit and Bithumb take in 90 million XRP: what to watch now

XRP trades at $1.36, or 1.21 euros, on Tuesday morning. That is 3.4 percent below Monday and 9.7 percent below a week ago, while over 30 days the token still shows a small gain of 1.0 percent. The number on its own explains little. More revealing is where the coins have moved over the past three weeks, because that is what decides the question an investor in Europe can actually answer today: is my XRP sitting somewhere I can reach it if I have to?

Two reports, dated October 12 and 13, point the same way. The Korean exchanges Upbit and Bithumb now hold around 90 million more XRP than they did three weeks ago. And on October 12 Standard Chartered began offering institutional custody for Ripple's stablecoin RLUSD on the XRP Ledger. Both reports turn on the same thing, namely who holds the coins. For a private investor in Europe that is a more practical question than any price forecast.

XRP price at $1.36: day's low $1.31, day's high $1.40

The daily range ran from $1.31 to $1.40 according to CoinGecko data retrieved on Tuesday morning. At $1.31 the price turned higher. Market capitalisation stands at $85.7 billion and turnover over the past 24 hours at $2.15 billion. There are 63.13 billion XRP in circulation.

For context: the all-time high of $3.65 dates from July 17, 2025. The price sits about 37 percent above the twelve-month low of $0.99, and 95 percent below the twelve-month high of $2.65. XRP has spent months in the lower half of its annual range, and the past week has not changed that.

On October 11 we reported an XRP price of $1.39 and the state of the vote on the planned lending function for the XRP Ledger. The price has lost 2.2 percent since then. The lending function itself is still not active: our own query to the XRP Ledger network through the public node xrplcluster.com shows the LendingProtocol amendment still among the amendments that have not been enabled as of October 13. The network was running server version 3.4.1, and the last validated ledger was 107,626,781. Anyone who was waiting for the lending function to launch as a price driver is still waiting.

90 million more XRP on Upbit and Bithumb

The move that stands out this week is not in the chart but in the exchanges' reserve data. According to CryptoQuant figures reported by The Crypto Basic on October 13, XRP holdings at the Korean exchange Upbit rose from 6.39 billion to 6.45 billion XRP between September 23 and October 13. That is 60 million tokens more. Bithumb went from around 1.81 billion to 1.84 billion XRP over the same period, roughly 30 million more.

Together the two Korean venues have therefore taken in around 90 million XRP. They now account for about 76 percent of the observed XRP reserves across the three venues compared. On the other side of the ledger, Binance's XRP reserves fell by 101 million tokens between September 27 and October 13.

The 50-day and 200-day averages sit less than a cent apart

For the levels we worked through the daily closing prices of the past twelve months ourselves. The 50-day moving average stands at $1.3949 and the 200-day average at $1.3902. The gap between them is 0.47 of a cent, the narrowest of the entire year. In the chart above it is the point on the far right where the red and the blue line converge.

This state of affairs is rare, and it says more than any single daily close. When the short-term and the long-term average sit at the same level, the market has lost its direction. The next decisive move then usually follows whichever way the price leaves that zone. At $1.36, XRP currently sits around 2.5 cents below both lines. The first level on the upside is therefore not a round number but the band between $1.39 and $1.40, where both averages and the day's high coincide. On the downside the next level with evidence behind it is the day's low at $1.31.

What a moving average cannot do

A moving average is an arithmetic aid, not a forecast. It says where the price stood on average over the past 50 or 200 days, and nothing more. Deriving a price target from it invents a precision the data does not hold. The lines are useful as a guide to the level at which a breakout is worth discussing at all.

Withdrawals account for 54 percent of transactions on Binance

The reserve data has a second layer. The share of withdrawals in all XRP transactions on Binance rose from 52 to 54 percent between August 26 and October 12, according to the same analysis. Across all the large centralised venues the figure climbed from 51 to 52.7 percent. The share of deposits on Binance fell in return from 47.7 to 45.9 percent, and across all exchanges from 48 to around 47 percent.

These figures call for restraint, and The Crypto Basic says so itself: the shares count transactions, not amounts. A withdrawal of 200 XRP carries the same weight as one of 200 million. A falling reserve is no proof of selling, just as a rising reserve is no proof of long-term holding. A further analysis puts inflows to Binance at around 1.6 billion XRP over the same 30-day window. Reading a price direction out of these numbers goes further than the data supports.

What the numbers do show is a shift in custody. XRP sits more heavily on Korean platforms and more lightly on the largest international exchange than it did in September. For an investor in Europe that is, for now, news about market structure rather than about the price.

Standard Chartered has held RLUSD custody on the XRP Ledger since October 12

On October 12 Standard Chartered said the bank supports institutional custody of Ripple USD, the stablecoin issued on the XRP Ledger. The service runs through the bank's DIFC branch in Dubai, which is supervised by the Dubai Financial Services Authority. In the bank's statement Waqar Chaudry, Global Head of Digital Assets in Securities Services, is quoted as saying: “Institutional clients want to participate in digital asset markets without compromising on how their assets are safeguarded or how risk is managed.”

The LMAX collateral arrangement is announced and not yet live

The same statement contains a second part that is easily confused with the first. Standard Chartered, Ripple and LMAX Group intend to make RLUSD usable as eligible collateral for LMAX products, through a mechanism that mirrors the value of the collateral while the tokens remain in the bank's custody. That part is announced, not launched. The bank writes that the future capabilities are subject to final documentation, successful testing, applicable law, internal approvals and the readiness of the relevant jurisdiction.

The distinction matters for how all of this should be read. What is live today is bank custody for a stablecoin on the XRP Ledger. That is a documented step for the infrastructure around Ripple. It is not a jump in turnover for XRP itself, because RLUSD and XRP are two different assets.

RLUSD has no MiCA authorisation as an e-money token in the EU

This is where the European rulebook comes in. According to its own statement, Ripple received full authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider under MiCA from the Luxembourg regulator CSSF on July 6, 2026, having already obtained an e-money licence in February. That authorisation covers services around crypto assets.

Issuing a dollar stablecoin, however, falls under a separate MiCA regime for e-money tokens. RLUSD would itself have to be authorised as an e-money token and carry an approved white paper before it could be offered publicly in the EU. As things stand that is not the case. In practice that means you will not currently find RLUSD on the menu at an exchange licensed in the EU, while euro and dollar stablecoins that do hold MiCA authorisation can be traded there. If you use stablecoins, it is worth checking before you buy whether the provider holds an EU licence and which tokens it is allowed to list under MiCA.

Custody: three points that matter before your next purchase

The reserve data and the bank custody describe the same development from two directions. Large institutions are professionalising custody, and at the same time holdings are shifting between trading venues. For your own portfolio three concrete points follow.

First, licensing. Since MiCA took full effect, providers in the EU need permission to operate, and national regulators such as BaFin in Germany list the institutions they have authorised. A look at the register takes two minutes. If you are considering a move, compare the fees and services of the major crypto exchanges first, because the spread between trading fee, bid-ask spread and withdrawal fee weighs more heavily on small amounts than a one percent price move.

Second, self-custody. XRP can be held on the XRP Ledger itself. One particular feature catches many people out: an XRP account requires a base reserve that stays permanently locked and cannot be spent. If you set up your own address, it is better to plan for that amount from the start than to discover it on your first withdrawal attempt. Which devices are suitable and what they cost is set out in our hardware wallet comparison.

Third, spreading the risk. The reserve data above shows how quickly holdings can move between platforms. Keeping an entire holding on a single venue means carrying that venue's risk alone, however large the venue is.

Tax: moving coins to your own wallet is not a sale

Transferring your XRP from an exchange to an address of your own does not trigger a taxable transaction in Germany. There is no disposal, and the asset stays yours. Tax becomes relevant only on a sale or a swap into another coin.

The rules for private disposals under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act apply here. If more than twelve months pass between acquisition and sale, the gain is tax free. Below that it counts as other income, and an exemption limit of 1,000 euros per calendar year applies to all private disposals taken together. An exemption limit means exactly that: one euro above it and the entire gain is taxable.

Documentation is what matters in practice. When coins move between your own wallets the acquisition date moves with them, but no exchange keeps track of it for you. If you use several addresses, record the purchase date, the amount and the acquisition cost for each lot, otherwise the one-year period cannot be evidenced later. There are tax tools and portfolio trackers for this that pull transactions together from several sources. They are no substitute for tax advice on an individual case.

The newsroom's view: a shift in custody, not a selling wave

In our view this week's reserve data carries less meaning than its headlines suggest. Three pieces of evidence from the text above support that: the share figures count transactions and not amounts, the same data set put around 1.6 billion XRP of inflows against the outflows at Binance over the 30-day window, and the shift of 90 million XRP amounts to around 0.14 percent of the 63.13 billion XRP in circulation.

Against that, the direction has held for three weeks and shows up at two exchanges at once. That is more than noise. Our reading is therefore this: the data evidences a shift in custody, not a selling wave. For the price, the more meaningful figure is the band between $1.39 and $1.40 where both moving averages sit. As long as XRP trades below it, the picture stays directionless. None of this is a recommendation to buy, and a total loss is possible at any time with crypto assets.

XRP at $1.36: the trend decides above $1.39

What is left of this Tuesday can be held onto in three steps:

1. Note the level. $1.39 to $1.40 is the zone where the 50-day average, the 200-day average and the day's high coincide. Only a daily close above it changes the picture; on the downside $1.31 is the next level with evidence behind it. We follow how the situation develops on our XRP price prediction page.
2. Settle the custody question. Does your provider hold an EU licence, and is your entire holding on a single platform? If you want to switch or spread it, the terms are in our crypto exchange comparison and the devices for self-custody in our hardware wallet comparison.
3. Document the holding period. A transfer to your own address is not a sale, but only a recorded purchase date lets you evidence the one-year period later. The tools for that are in our crypto tax software comparison.

(As of October 13, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)