XRP Sinks With Bitcoin Everywhere -- Except South Korea

XRP is moving in step with Bitcoin worldwide, but South Korea is the notable exception, with local traders discounting BTC far more than they sell XRP. Over the past 30 days, XRP and BTC tracked closely, showing a daily-return correlation of 0.88, suggesting XRP follows the leader’s direction but with weaker strength. Bitcoin was roughly flat on the month while XRP fell about 5%, pushing the XRP/BTC ratio down around 5%. That leaves XRP among weaker large caps globally, and ETH has climbed while XRP slid. The key divergence is Korea Premium, where Bitcoin trades about 1% cheaper on local exchanges, with the index near minus 1.18%. On Upbit, XRP is roughly flat versus its global price, implying less willingness among Korean holders to dump. Ripple also recently joined the Linux Foundation’s x402 group to support AI agent payments on the XRP Ledger with XRP and RLUSD, though a recovery likely still depends on Bitcoin turning up.