Key Takeaways:
XRP trades near $1.15, down 43% on the year, while Ripple's institutional wins flow through RLUSD rather than the token itself.
"The settlement used RLUSD as the cash leg, with XRP covering only the network fee," Mike Higgins, CEO of Ripple Prime, said in a recent webinar. "Institutions are increasingly using XRP and RLUSD as collateral for 24/7 capital mobility."
Ripple, working with JPMorgan, Mastercard and Ondo Finance, settled a tokenized US Treasury redemption on the XRP Ledger in under five seconds in June. The transaction used RLUSD — Ripple's dollar-pegged stablecoin — as the settlement asset, while XRP appeared only as a fraction-of-a-cent network fee. RLUSD has grown to roughly $1.7 billion in market value, though most of it lives on Ethereum rather than the XRP Ledger. XRP spot ETFs have pulled in about $1.45 billion since launching in late 2025, with inflows holding steady for six straight weeks even as Bitcoin and Ethereum funds saw outflows.
The gap between Ripple's corporate momentum and XRP's price performance is the central tension for holders. Ripple holds a conditional national trust-bank charter, has hinted at an IPO, and landed 10 major deals this year. Yet XRP has fallen more than 40% over the past 12 months. The CLARITY Act, which would classify XRP as a commodity under federal law, is stuck in the Senate with no floor vote scheduled. Standard Chartered forecasts XRP at $2.80 by year-end and as high as $8 if the bill passes and ETF inflows scale past $3 billion to $5 billion.
Why Ripple's wins don't reach XRP
The structural reason is that Ripple's business model routes value through RLUSD and its payment rails, not through XRP. Banks prefer a stable settlement asset, and RLUSD is designed for that role. Every new RLUSD deal is a win for Ripple the company, but none of it requires buying or holding XRP. The token appears only as a tiny network fee on each transaction.
On the supply side, Ripple releases up to 1 billion XRP from escrow each month, a steady source of potential selling pressure that the token's fee burn — negligible at current volumes — cannot offset. Large holders have pulled more than 1.5 billion tokens off exchanges over the past six months, reducing the floating supply, but that has not been enough to break the price out of its range.
What could break the range
The most direct catalyst is the CLARITY Act. Analysts project it could unlock billions in additional ETF inflows by codifying XRP's digital-commodity status. Without it, XRP may continue to trade in a range between $1.00 and $1.50, with the 200-day moving average sitting above the current price as a technical reminder of the downtrend.
For holders, the bet is whether Ripple's institutional adoption eventually translates into demand for XRP itself. If the CLARITY Act passes and ETF inflows compound, Standard Chartered's $8 target becomes plausible. If the value keeps flowing through RLUSD and the payment rails, XRP could drift back toward $1.00.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
