U.S. inflation data landed hotter than expected, with the Consumer Price Index at 3.7% and core inflation at 2.6%, both above forecasts and adding pressure across crypto markets. Ripple’s recent agreements with Standard Chartered, Privy, and Meritz have not confirmed institutional buying of XRP, leaving the token exposed as it traded near $1.36 on October 14. A break below the $1.34–$1.30 support zone could open a decline toward $1.28 and $1.246, while a recovery above $1.40 is seen as increasingly uncertain.
On October 12, Standard Chartered launched institutional custody of Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin on the XRP Ledger through its regulated Dubai International Financial Centre branch. The bank, Ripple, and LMAX Group also proposed using RLUSD as trading collateral. Ripple separately expanded its prime brokerage push on Wall Street, with Ripple Prime offering swap financing for leveraged ETFs and deepening its partnership with Brevan Howard for hedge funds and investment managers.
Meanwhile, XRP-holding company Evernorth debuted on Nasdaq on October 12 after merging with Armada Acquisition Corp. II, with 473 million XRP in its treasury. Its stock traded between $16.40 and $19.40 on launch day before closing at $15.26 on October 14. Evernorth later announced partnerships with Ripple, Kraken, Coinbase, and BitGo to deploy XRP into institutional strategies starting in Q4 2026.
Spot XRP ETF demand has faded: after attracting $11.31 million last week while Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs bled, net flows were $0.00 on Monday and Tuesday, with only $740,410 on Wednesday. In addition, the XRP Ledger Foundation disclosed a critical integer overflow bug dating back to 2015 that could have allowed minting beyond the 100 billion XRP cap. It was fixed in xrpld 3.4.1 on September 25, with no extra XRP created. Analyst Ali Martinez said a rebound from the $1.25 support could push XRP toward $1.42 and potentially $1.60.
