XRP (XRP) has rallied by nearly 10% in the past 24 hours and hit $1.60 despite news that one of the crypto space’s largest centralized exchanges, Bitget, was hacked.
Bitget confirmed the hack in an X post published 15 hours ago, disclosing total losses of around $351.6 million. North Korean hackers are reportedly responsible for the drain.
“At 18:31 UTC on September 24, 2026, Bitget’s security systems detected unauthorized transfers from some of our hot wallets. Our security team activated emergency response protocols immediately,” commented the exchange’s CEO, Gracy Chen.
Chen further confirmed that user funds remain safe, as these losses are covered by Bitget’s User Protection Fund. The exchange said it is actively working with authorities, blockchains, and other exchanges to block the addresses involved in the hack.
Ripple’s Actions Regarding Bitget’s Stolen Funds Will Be Scrutinized
According to on-chain data, a big portion of the stolen funds are XRP tokens within the XRP Ledger. Ripple has not yet commented on any actions regarding these funds.
Decentralization is a key characteristic of blockchain technology. When these incidents happen, the crypto community tends to pay close attention to the matter, as any intervention from the top development team to freeze funds or blacklist wallet addresses is considered an indication of unwanted centralization.
Despite the Bitget news, the crypto market has kept rallying after last week’s interest rate decision by the Federal Reserve. Market participants are now fully pricing in a second rate hike in December, and multiple ones in 2027.
However, sentiment has swung to “Greed” territory according to the Crypto Fear and Greed Index, as capital continues to flow out of the bond market and into risky assets.
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See all Ripple forecastsNetwork Growth Signals the Beginning of a Massive Price Move for XRP
Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) linked to XRP have received strong inflows in the past 3 days, with $52 million being poured into these vehicles during this short period.
As a result, monthly inflows are now sitting at $95 million and could close the month near August’s levels if the trend continues for what remains of the month.
Meanwhile, turning to on-chain data, network growth appears to be indicating that market participants are positioning for a big move.
According to Santiment, over 30,000 new wallet addresses were created on September 16. Based on historical patterns, the last four times that this has happened, XRP’s price action has moved decisively in the direction of the dominant trend.
This means that XRP traders could be positioning for the continuation of the current rally, possibly eyeing our long-dated $1.80 target for the token as the next stop.
XRP Could Rally to $2.10 in the Mid-Term as Bullish Momentum Accelerates
Heading to the daily chart, XRP has apparently resumed its rally after a brief 2-day pullback. A bull flag pattern breakout is now setting the stage for the continuation of the current uptrend.
Although our initial target is $1.80, we expect that this next leg up could push XRP to as much as $2.10 in the next few weeks, as bullish momentum remains strong. This target results from using the flag’s pole size as a reference to estimate how high this altcoin could fly in the mid-term.
Moreover, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) just rose above the signal line and past the 60 mark, indicating that buyers are in control of the price action.
