XRP sold after a 53% surge in a week: What is the cost of the holding period?

If you sell XRP now, the net income depends first on the purchase date and then on the price

If you buy for more than twelve months, the entire income remains tax-free in Germany. If the purchase is closer, a personal income tax rate of up to 45% applies once you realize private disposal gains in the calendar year exceed € 1,000.

For XRP, this rule currently produces a result that most price reports ignore. Prices rose by about half in seven days. But those who have held it for a year bought XRP at a price much higher than the current price. Nowadays, almost all people who hold paper income are still in the holding period. This article analyzes the two situations separately through the actual price on the reference date, explains the holding period, tax exemption limit and FIFO rules with specific figures, and tells you what records are needed when filing taxes.

XRP price is US$1.51: Data behind the weekly increase

On August 24, 2026, at 00:36 UTC, XRP was quoted at US$1.51, or 1.29 euros. This data comes from our call to the CoinGecko Price API at this time. The increase was 3.9% in 24 hours, 53.1% in seven days, and 39.3% in 30 days. The market value is approximately US$94.4 billion, the transaction volume in the past 24 hours is approximately US$5.14 billion, and the circulation supply is 62.74 billion XRPs.

Weekly increase results will vary depending on the data provider and call time. The previous day's measurement was slightly below 50%, and the call on August 24 was 53.1%. Therefore, the fair value is approximately between 50% and 53%. For your tax record, only the euro price at the time of your actual transaction is important.

As industry background: In the same call, the Bitcoin price was US$77,457, a weekly increase of 23.6%. As a result, XRP has a significant lead over the market leaders this week. There is still room above: XRP's historical high is US$3.65 on July 17, 2025, which is about 58.6% from current levels.

Our August 21, 2026 article "XRP Surges 40% in Seven Days" set $1.50 as the next target. That goal has been achieved. As a result, the issue shifted from price targets to enforcement, and in Germany, enforcement was first and foremost a tax issue.

Holding period under Article 23 of the German Income Tax Law: Why twelve months determine your entire tax bill

Holding period refers to the time span between the acquisition of an economic asset and its disposal. If the cryptocurrency is held for more than one year, the sale is no longer subject to taxation on private disposal transactions. This is regulated by Article 23, paragraph 1, sentence 1, No. 2 of the German Income Tax Code.

Private disposal transactions are transactions that are sold from private assets and have less than one year between acquisition and disposal. At this point, gains are not included in investment income (subject to a fixed 25% tax rate), but are included in your other income and taxed at your personal tax rate. Up to 45% for high-income earners, plus a solidarity surcharge, and possibly applicable church taxes.

There is more behavior seen as disposal than many investors imagine. In addition to being sold in euros, exchanging XRP for another cryptocurrency or stablecoin, as well as using it as a payment method or making payments through a cryptocurrency credit card, are all disposals. These actions will trigger the same tax events as classic sales.

The scale varies greatly. Suppose you realize a gain of € 10,000, and the marginal tax rate is 42%: over a one-year period, you will need to pay approximately € 4,200 in income tax plus a solidarity surcharge. Once one year expires, it will be zero euros. The same position and the same price differ by thousands of euros just due to different calendars.

Two purchase dates, two completely different tax conditions: For XRP, the current buying price is worse for a position that has a one-year holding period.

XRP reference date comparison: Whoever can sell tax-free is at a loss

This is where the theory becomes uncomfortably specific. The following prices are from the same historical price series from CoinGecko, retrieved on August 24, 2026:

August 24, 2025: US$3.05, 2.60 euros
February 24, 2026: US$1.37, 1.16 euros
May 24, 2026: US$1.35, 1.16 euros
August 10, 2026: US$1.03, equivalent to 0.89 euros
August 17, 2026: US$0.99, equivalent to 0.86 euros
August 24, 2026: US$1.51, equivalent to 1.29 euros

Reading this series of data from top to bottom, problems emerge. People who bought exactly a year ago have a one-year holding period today. They bought it for 2.60 euros, and the current price is 1.29 euros, down about 50%. Tax exemptions are of no use to them because no income is generated that requires tax.

People who have gains today face full tax rates

Vice versa: People who bought for € 0.86 on August 17, 2026 are now up by about 50%. This gain is real, but the one-year holding period will not end until August 17, 2027. If the investor sells today, the entire proceeds will be subject to tax once the proceeds add up to € 1,000 with private disposals in other years.

Purchases in February and May 2026 also rose by about 11% in euro terms. The corresponding holding periods end in February and May 2027 respectively. In short: All paper gains from this rally are in positions that remain tax-locked. This is not a problem with XRP itself, but a result of the price path: Prices have fallen for a year before turning around in recent weeks.

Allowances rather than exemptions: Income thresholds for tax authorities to intervene

Allowances are thresholds beyond which the entire amount is subject to tax, not just the excess. This is the difference between it and the tax exemption limit (part of the tax exemption allowed). For private disposal transactions, the tax exemption is € 1,000 per person per year; this amount was increased by the Growth Opportunities Act to € 600 previously.

The actual consequences are often underestimated. When the annual income is 999 euros, the tax is zero. When the annual income is € 1,001, the entire € 1,001 will be taxed at the personal rate. Just above two euros, net income is lost by hundreds of euros.

There are two more points to be explained here. First, the tax exemption applies to the sum of all private disposal transactions during a year, rather than separately calculated by currency, exchange or wallet. If you also sell physical gold that you have held for less than a year in the same year, the gain is also included. Second, you can use losses from private disposal transactions to offset similar gains, either within the same year or through losses carried forward to a later year. Married couples each enjoy their own tax exemption.

FIFO and wallet-by-wallet calculation: During partial sales, which XRPs you actually sold

FIFO stands for first-in-first-out, which means that the earliest unit purchased is regarded as the first unit sold. The tax authorities stipulated this order in a letter from the Federal Ministry of Finance dated March 6, 2025.

In addition, the wallet-by-wallet accounting principle applies: each wallet and each exchange account is considered to be held independently. Therefore, the XRP you have on your trading platform and the XRP in your hardware wallet form two separate holding pools, each with its own FIFO order.

Regarding valuation, the letter allows the averaging method in principle, but also allows FIFO as a simplified method. Once selected, within the same wallet, for the same trading instrument, you must maintain this method until all the holdings are disposed of. You can switch methods only after you have fully sold and re-bought.

In effect, this means that people who buy XRP in batches over several months sell the oldest part first when they sell part. This is usually beneficial because these portions are closest to or have exceeded a one-year holding period. But specific calculations are needed, not assumptions: with XRP, the oldest part is also the most expensive, and selling it duty-free and at a loss will do you no good. If you hold multiple batches on multiple platforms, manual calculations can quickly reach their limits; at this point, reviewing comparisons of relevant cryptocurrency tax tools and portfolio trackers can often save time and cost less than the tool itself.

Partial sell, stop or hold: three paths and their tax consequences

Based on facts, no recommendations are given, but options can be clearly distinguished. Which one is right for you depends on your purchase date, tax rate and risk appetite.

Path 1: Sell immediately and reserve tax

People who sell within a one-year period should reserve tax immediately rather than paying it out of daily funds the following year. Setting aside a rough amount of realized gains at marginal tax rates avoids the worst-case scenario: the gains will be back on the market and devalued by the time the tax comes due. If you want to transfer euros to a bank account, it is recommended to check the withdrawal path and fees first. The relevant comparison applies to XRP.

Path 2: Wait for the one-year holding period to expire

Waiting for tax exemption is attractive, but it is not a benefit of free. You are trading certain tax savings in exchange for open price risk. Weighing the two: If your price gain is 30%, and the tax rate is 42%, selling immediately will lose about 12.6 percentage points of return. If the price falls by more than 12.6 percentage points before the end of the holding period, waiting will cost you money.

Path 3: Hold a position and carefully consider the tax impact of hedging

A stop loss order is a sell order triggered when the price reaches a set level. From a tax perspective, this is a completely ordinary sale, and the trigger timing is determined by the market, not your calendar. Therefore, people who want to hold a position until the end of the holding period should deliberately set a stop loss or not use it at all. Similarly, the practice of transferring assets into stablecoins requires attention, which many investors mistakenly believe to be tax-neutral.

In partial sales, the chain of records determines how much price gain you can ultimately retain.

Obligation to record: Requirements for you in the Federal Treasury Letter dated March 6, 2025

The Federal Treasury Letter dated March 6, 2025 (Document No. IVC1-S2256/00042/064/043) replaces the old letter dated May 10, 2022. The letter has a total of 34 pages and clearly stipulates for the first time the tax filing, cooperation and recording obligations of encrypted assets.

The full text of the letter is available on the website of the Federal Ministry of Finance (PDF format).

For private investors, the core point is that you must record all information that falls within your knowledge. Tax authorities may require evidence of acquisition date, acquisition cost and wallet allocation. Therefore, please record for each transaction:

-Trading date and time
-Event type, i.e. buy, sell, Exchange or payment
-Number of units transferred
-Euro price at the time of transaction
-Fees incurred
-Wallet or exchange involved
-Transaction ID (if any)

This reason for caution is both bland and expensive. If you cannot prove the date of acquisition, you cannot prove that the one-year holding period has expired. You wait a year for tax exemption based solely on your oral statement. Exchanges will not provide historical export data indefinitely, while closed platforms will not provide any data at all. [TAG DAC8: Why Tax Authorities Automatically Receive Your Exchange Data

DAC8 is the eighth edition of the EU Administrative Co-operation Directive, extending automatic information exchange between tax authorities to crypto assets. As of January 1, 2026, crypto service providers in the EU must record customer transaction data without omission; from 2027, this data will be automatically transmitted to tax authorities.

This mainly changes the burden of proof for you. Previously, encrypted tax returns were largely self-declared and were only inspected when in doubt. In the future, the tax administration department will machine compare your data with platform reports. People with clear records will not be affected. People with loopholes should complete them now rather than wait until the tax inquiry letter is sent to the mailbox before taking action.

It should also be noted about the legal position itself: the one-year holding period for crypto assets is politically controversial, and there have been a number of reform proposals this year. For your decisions today, only existing laws (as described above) are effective. If the rules change, the new rules usually apply to assets acquired in the future, rather than retroactively to positions you have held for a long time.

CLARITY Bill: What did the U.S. Senate actually vote on September 15?

The most frequently cited driver of this round of rally is a piece of U.S. legislation. Majority Leader John Thun launched the Digital Asset Markets CLARITY Act (H.R.) in early August. 3633). The voting is scheduled to take place on September 15, 2026.

Closing debate is a procedural step in the U.S. Senate designed to limit debate on a bill; 60 votes are needed. The key to the assessment lies in the content of the September 15 vote: a motion to debate the bill. Therefore, a successful vote does not mean that the bill is passed, but only the beginning of the debate. Republicans have 53 seats, so to reach 60 votes, they need the support of at least seven Democratic or non-partisan lawmakers.

Both bullish and bearish views coexist

Bullish view: A successful closing debate vote will be the first solid signal that U.S. market structure rules are still possible during this legislative cycle, and XRP is one of the assets whose legal classification will be directly affected.

The bearish view comes from analysts themselves. Galaxy Research in July lowered the probability that the law will take effect in 2026 from 50% to 30%, citing a reduction in the remaining session: After Congress resumes on September 14, there are only 14 session days left before the October election recess. This is an assessment by market research institutions and not a conclusive prediction. Other agencies calculate differently, with some reports citing much lower numbers. This means one thing for your sell decision: a price based on procedural steps may also fall back due to the same procedural steps.

Which exchange to sell on: Fees, Regulation and Euro Withdraws

If you decide to sell, the platform largely determines the final outcome. Before placing an order, it is worth comparing five aspects.

First, the fee model: Trading platforms that charge market makers and buyers are almost always cheaper than providers that build in spreads for large transactions. Second, withdrawal path: SEPA transfers are usually free or cheap, while instant withdrawals are rarely free. Third, supervision: Providers licensed under EU MiCA regulations or BaFin licenses are supervised by regulatory agencies and can seek help in case of disputes. Fourth, tax reporting: Clear CSV or API exports with timestamps, euro prices and fees can save you a lot of tax filing time. Fifth, limit: The withdrawal limit and verification level differ greatly and cannot be temporarily compensated when selling.

In Germany, which providers meet these conditions are listed in the relevant comparison.

Sell XRP: Summary Points

First, determine your purchase date by batch, not price increase.

Only then can you know if any taxes will be incurred. If your positions are spread across multiple exchanges and wallets, the fastest way is to use the tools in the comparison of relevant cryptocurrency tax tools and portfolio trackers.

Calculate tax savings and price risk rather than estimate.

With a marginal tax rate of 42%, if the price loss before the end of the holding period falls below about 13 percentage points, it is worth the wait. If you want to sell, please first check the withdrawal path in the relevant sell comparison.

Make sure your records are secure before trading.

Export trading history and trading prices from each platform you use. If you discover during the process that your provider cannot provide available exports, alternatives to providing complete tax reporting are listed in the relevant exchange comparison.