XRP Climbs to 5th on Crypto Rankings After Rallying Over 20%

XRP (CRYPTO:XRP) trades at $1.24 after gaining 20.7% in the past 24 hours. Thi si its biggest move since February 6, when it rose 21%. XRP has now passed USDC into fifth place by market value, and is worth $77.47 billion.

Three days ago the XRP price was at a cycle low of $0.9877 and nothing about the chart suggested a move like this. So what changed?

What Set Off the Crypto Rally

The XRP price moved on something outside crypto entirely. On Wednesday, August 19, the US Treasury under Secretary Scott Bessent said it would at least double the size of its long-end buyback operations, raising the cap from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation, running from September 9 through November 4.

The announcement followed the 30-year Treasury yield hitting 5.34% the day before, which is the highest since 2007. A yield that high means the government is paying more to borrow, and it pulls money out of riskier assets like crypto into bonds that suddenly pay well. Yields fell immediately after Treasury spoke, with the 30-year dropping to 5.196%, and the dollar weakened to a three-month low against other major currencies.

Gold traded near $4,449 an ounce over the same stretch, which is where money goes when investors expect currencies to lose value. 21Shares said markets were “smelling quantitative easing.” Buybacks are not quantitative easing, where a central bank creates new money to buy bonds. Treasury is retiring older securities with cash it already holds. However, the effect on long-term borrowing costs runs in the same direction, which is why traders treated it as a liquidity signal.