XRP Network Sees Strong Jump in ‘Hot Capital’

Here's how this growth compares with Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies.

On-chain data from Glassnode reveals that the capital tied to seven-day-old XRP coins, commonly termed "Hot Capital," has experienced a significant surge recently.

The capital reserve of any digital asset is measured through its "Realized Cap," a capitalization model that calculates the total valuation of a cryptocurrency by considering each token in circulation at the last transaction price on the chain. Since the last transaction of any coin is likely to represent the last time it changed hands, the price at that time could be considered as its current cost basis. Thus, the Realized Cap essentially sums up the cost basis of all investors in the asset.

Any variation in this indicator could be assumed to be capital moving in or out of the cryptocurrency, depending on the direction of the change. In the context of the current topic, the Realized Cap of the entire network isn't of interest, but only of a portion of it: the Hot Supply. This indicator measures the realized cap of coins that last moved during the past seven days.

In a new post on X, the on-chain analytics firm focused on how this capital associated with young coins has changed for XRP during the last few months. Here is the chart that the firm shared showing the recent trends:

As is visible in the above graph, the Realized Cap associated with coins that moved during the last week has registered an increase for XRP recently. This could be a potential signal that speculative capital is entering the cryptocurrency.

"XRP Hot Capital rose from $0.92B on 20 Apr to $2.17B on 28 Apr – a $1.25B (+134.9%) surge. Despite this rebound, the metric remains ~72% below its Dec 2024 peak of $7.66B," Glassnode stated.

XRP isn't the only digital asset that's observing an increase in short-term holder activity. As the analytics firm has pointed out in other X posts, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana have all witnessed a considerable rise in Hot Capital during the same period.

First, here is the chart for Bitcoin, displaying how the indicator has gone through a 92% surge to $39.1 billion:

According to Glassnode, this turnaround in the Hot Capital is one of the fastest upticks that the indicator has seen for Bitcoin in recent months. Though the percentage increase witnessed by the metric is still lower than the one for XRP.

"After hitting a December 2024 low of $20.4B last week, Bitcoin's Hot Capital has seen a rapid turnaround. Rising by 92% over the past seven days to reach $39.1B. This is one of the fastest upticks in recent months."

This isn't surprising considering that Bitcoin's capital has dropped sharply this year, especially during the March crash when the indicator fell below $20 billion for the first time since early 2021.

The capital tied to seven-day-old ETH coins has also seen a surge, but it isn't as pronounced as the one witnessed by BTC or XRP. In fact, the increase in the indicator is still lower than 50%.

"Ethereum's Hot Capital continues to lag, slipping 54% lower since 17 Apr to $22.4B. This compares to Bitcoin's steeper 92% rise and signals that ETH capital isn't yet returning at the same pace."

While Hot Capital has grown across these cryptocurrencies, its value still remains far below the high observed earlier in the cycle, an indication that speculative activity hasn't quite made a full comeback yet. More specifically, the indicator is sitting at 60% down for both Bitcoin and Ethereum, and 72% for XRP.

The asset that is currently the closest to making a return is Solana, with the metric being around 38% following a weekly jump of 100%.