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XRP ETFs see a flood of inflows — but price isn’t keeping up – DL News

Crypto News

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March 6, 2026

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XRP ETFs see a flood of inflows — but price isn’t keeping up – DL News

Investors have bought $19 million in XRP exchange-traded funds.
XRP’s price remains laggard.
Experts said the asset has appeal.

Investors are enjoying XRP’s dip by piling back into the Ripple-backed crypto’s exchange-traded funds.

Over the past week, nearly $19 million has flowed into XRP ETFs, according to SoSoValue data. The products — which debuted in November — now manage a combined total of close to $1.1 billion in assets.

Still, XRP’s price is over 60% below its all-time high, recently trading for around $1.40, according to CoinGecko. Over the past 30 days, the fifth biggest coin has shed nearly 11% of its value.

Flows into the XRP ETFs are small fish compared to what has been deployed into Bitcoin funds, however. In the past week alone, investors have pumped over $1.3 billion into Bitcoin ETFs.

‘Not normal’

While the ETF flows pale in comparison to their Bitcoin counterparts, experts told DL News that the two products are very different beasts.

Bitcoin ETFs, which launched in January 2024, had the most successful debut in the history of ETFs. The products, managed by the likes of BlackRock, Fidelity, and Grayscale, manage a total of around $107 billion in assets, according to DefiLlama.

Despite its staggering popularity, market watchers reckon investors should remain level-headed when analysing Bitcoin ETFs.

“We need to remember that Bitcoin ETFs are a massive outlier. They were the most successful ETF launch of all time by a factor of six,” Bitwise Asset Management’s chief investment officer, Matt Hougan, said. “They are not normal.”

XRP is well below its record. Source: CoinGecko.

He added that while XRP ETFs haven’t attracted the same amount of capital as its Bitcoin and Ethereum counterparts, they are doing well considering market conditions.

The broader crypto market has been lambasted by a variety of factors, including a $19 billion liquidation event on October 10, massive macro headwinds, and geopolitical turmoil.

Ripple bounces back

XRP is closely linked to Ripple, a fintech company that claims to use blockchain tech to move money for big institutions.

Ripple, which holds a large amount of XRP, is racing to deploy technology that lets financial institutions mint CBDCs, or central bank digital currencies. It is also adding payment processing technology for stablecoins.

Ric Edelman, the founder of the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals, told DL News that while investors — particularly ETF buyers — were mainly interested in Bitcoin and Ethereum for now, XRP still had a chance.

“The tech remains viable; perhaps over time it will get the attention it once enjoyed,” he said, noting that XRP was far more popular years ago.

Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at mdisalvo@dlnews.com.

Short seller Culper Research says ether tokenomics is ‘impaired’

DeFi

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March 5, 2026

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Short seller Culper Research says ether tokenomics is ‘impaired’

Short seller Culper Research is betting against ether (ETH) and ETH-linked stocks such as BitMine (BMNR), arguing that the network’s economics deteriorated following Ethereum’s latest network upgrade.

The firm said in a Thursday report that the December 2025 upgrade dubbed Fusaka flooded the network with excess blockspace and has “impaired ETH tokenomics.” That drove transaction fees sharply lower. Because validators earn part of their income from those fees, the drop has reduced staking yields.

That dynamic could create a negative feedback loop, the report said, where declining validator yields reduce staking demand and network security.

The report also highlighted that Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin sold nearly 20,000 ETH, worth around $40 million at current prices, this year, citing data from blockchain sleuth Lookonchain.

“Vitalik is selling, while bulls like Tom Lee are clueless as to ETH’s new reality,” the report said. “We’re with Vitalik.”

The report pushes back on bullish claims from Lee, chairman of Ethereum-centric treasury firm BitMine, who has pointed to rising transaction counts and active addresses as evidence of stronger network fundamentals.

Culper said those metrics are misleading. Its analysis claimed a significant share of the activity surge stems from address poisoning attacks, a scam tactic where attackers send small transactions to trick users into copying malicious wallet addresses. Culper estimated Ethereum fees have dropped roughly 90% since the upgrade.

“By Lee’s own logic, if utility is NOT going up, then ETH is in a death spiral,” the report said. “This is exactly what we believe is happening.”

The short thesis also targeted BitMine (BMNR), one of the largest corporate buyers of ether.

Since July, the company has accumulated roughly 4.4 million ETH as part of its treasury strategy. With ether prices down significantly from recent highs, those holdings are estimated to be 45% underwater, with BitMine sitting on roughly $7.4 billion in unrealized losses, DropsTab data shows.

BitMine did not return a request for comment by press time.

Read more: Vitalik Buterin reveals his bold new plan to fix Ethereum’s scaling problem

Tron’s Rainberry to pay $10 million to settle SEC, Justin Sun lawsuit

Ethereum

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March 5, 2026

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Tron’s Rainberry to pay $10 million to settle SEC, Justin Sun lawsuit

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reached a settlement with Tron and founder Justin Sun on Thursday, the SEC said in a court filing.

Under the terms of the settlement, Rainberry Inc., one of the companies associated with the Tron network, will pay a $10 million fine and be barred from future violations of securities regulations. The SEC sued Sun and Tron in 2023, alleging violation of federal securities laws through the sale and airdropping of Tron (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT) tokens.

Apart from the SEC’s accusations that Tron was dealing in unregistered securities, the regulator had also alleged the defendants “fraudulently manipulat[ed]” TRX’s secondary market through an “extensive wash trading” scheme. In the agency’s rush to drop its earlier crypto registration cases, it kept pursuing those that were associated with deeper accusations.

“The remaining claims against Rainberry would be dismissed with prejudice,” the filing said. “The Final Judgment would also dismiss all claims against Justin Sun, Tron Foundation, and BitTorrent Foundation.”

With prejudice means the SEC would not be able to bring a similar case again in future for the same conduct.

“The Commission has reviewed and approved the terms of the settlement, as reflected in the Consent and proposed Final Judgment. Rainberry, Justin Sun, Tron Foundation, and BitTorrent Foundation have consented to entry of the Final Judgment,” the filing said.

The proposed settlement is still subject to a federal judge’s approval.

At the time the SEC, under the leadership of former Chair Gary Gensler, brought a number of lawsuits against crypto firms.

The SEC dropped most of these cases after President Donald Trump retook office last January, mostly under Commissioner Mark Uyeda, the acting chair. The commission is now run by Chairman Paul Atkins.

Sun bought about $75 million worth of World Liberty Financial tokens (WLFI) — the token tied to the company partially owned by Trump and his family — after Trump was reelected in 2024, and his overall ownership including unvested tokens reached nearly $700 million by mid-2025. The SEC’s case against Sun was paused last year, alongside numerous other cases the agency brought against crypto firms.

Spokespeople for Tron did not return a request for comment by press time. A spokesperson for the SEC declined to comment.

In a post on X, Sun said, “Today’s resolution brings closure, but I never stopped building. I will continue to focus on accelerating innovation in the United States and around the world and look forward to working with the SEC to develop guidance and regulations for crypto going forward.”

UPDATE (March 5, 22:00 UTC): Adds additional context.

UPDATE (March 5, 22:47 UTC): Adds SEC declining to comment, amends Sun’s WLFI token ownership.

UPDATE (March 5, 23:45 UTC): Adds Sun tweet.