Have you ever watched a token with genuinely impressive fundamentals get absolutely crushed by market sentiment? That’s exactly what’s happening with XRP right now, and honestly, it’s starting to feel a little surreal.
Sitting at roughly $2.19 as I write this, XRP has shed almost 40% from its 2025 peak. Meanwhile, the very ecosystem it powers is printing some of the most encouraging stablecoin numbers we’ve seen outside the USDT/USDC duopoly. It’s the classic case of price and fundamentals moving in completely opposite directions.
So what’s really going on? Let’s dig in.
The RLUSD Growth Story Nobody Seems to Care About (Yet)
Ripple’s stablecoin RLUSD has been one of the quietest success stories of the past few months. Most people still think of Ripple as “that XRP company that fought the SEC,” but the reality on-chain tells a very different story.
In the last 30 days alone, the circulating supply of RLUSD jumped 28% to $1.2 billion. That’s not pocket change – it now ranks as the third-largest regulated, GENIUS Act-compliant stablecoin in existence. Only USDC and PayPal’s PYUSD sit ahead of it in that particular category.
But the number that really caught my eye? Adjusted transaction volume spiked a massive 56% to $3.5 billion over the same period. That’s real usage, not just idle tokens sitting in wallets.
Why Volume Matters More Than Supply
Anybody can mint a billion dollars of stablecoins and park them in a treasury. What actually matters is whether people are moving them around. High volume means real economic activity – payments, transfers, DeFi liquidity, institutional flows.
When you see volume outpacing supply growth by that wide a margin, it usually signals genuine adoption rather than artificial inflation. In my experience watching stablecoin cycles, this is exactly the kind of organic growth that eventually forces the market to pay attention.
The XRP Ledger’s Quiet Comeback
Here’s something most headlines completely miss: a huge chunk of RLUSD lives on Ethereum right now, but the supply on the XRP Ledger itself has rocketed toward $300 million in just a few months.
That might sound small compared to Ethereum’s numbers, but context matters. The XRPL was written off by many as a “dead chain” after years of regulatory overhang. Watching hundreds of millions in regulated stablecoin supply migrate back home feels… significant.
- 443,000 transactions in the past 30 days
- $3.5 billion in settled volume
- Nearly $300 million now natively on XRPL
- Zero days of ETF outflows in the United States
Those aren’t hype metrics. Those are cold, hard on-chain numbers.
XRP ETFs: The Inflows Nobody Talks About
While Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs dominate the headlines, something fascinating has been happening in the XRP spot ETF space – there hasn’t been a single day of net outflows. Not one.
Cumulative inflows now sit above $622 million, with total assets under management crossing $644 million. That might seem tiny next to the trillions flowing into BTC products, but percentage-wise it tells a different story.
XRP ETF assets currently represent about 0.5% of the token’s total market cap. For comparison, Ethereum ETFs sit at roughly 5.5% and Bitcoin around 6.5%. Translation? There’s still an enormous amount of institutional catching-up left to do if XRP ever regains narrative momentum.
“Consistent inflows with zero redemptions is about as strong a signal as you can get from traditional finance players. They’re not trading this – they’re allocating.”
I’ve watched enough ETF launches to know that pattern. It’s the same quiet accumulation phase we saw with Bitcoin in 2023 before the dam finally broke.
Technical Picture: Yes, It Looks Ugly
Now let’s talk about the part nobody wants to hear – the charts are not pretty right now.
XRP has been stuck below its 100-day exponential moving average for months. The Supertrend indicator flipped bearish long ago. And perhaps most worrying, we’re seeing a clear pattern of lower highs and lower lows – textbook bearish structure.
Every attempted bounce since the summer has been sold into aggressively. The most recent rally toward $2.60 got rejected hard, and price has been grinding lower ever since.
Key Levels to Watch
If this downtrend continues – and technicals suggest it might – the next major support sits around $1.81, the swing low from October and November. That’s roughly 16–17% downside from current levels.
A break and close below that would likely open the door to sub-$1.50 psychological territory, a level not seen since the post-election pump in late 2024.
On the flip side, reclaiming the 100-day EMA (currently near $2.45) and turning it into support would be the first real sign that bulls are regaining control. Until that happens, the path of least resistance remains lower.
The Disconnect Between Price and Fundamentals
Here’s what keeps me up at night about XRP: the growing gap between what’s happening on-chain and what the price action is telling us.
We’ve got regulated stablecoin issuance scaling rapidly. We’ve got institutional money flowing into ETFs without interruption. We’ve got real payment volume picking up on the XRPL again. Yet the token itself can’t hold $2.20.
It feels a lot like 2017–2018 in reverse – back then XRP pumped on pure hype while actual usage was minimal. Now we’re seeing the opposite: real adoption growth met with total price apathy.
Markets can stay irrational far longer than most of us can stay solvent, but eventually something has to give.
What Could Change the Narrative?
- A major bank or payment giant announcing RLUSD integration
- RLUSD supply on XRPL crossing $1 billion
- XRP ETFs breaking into the top 20 by AUM
- Broader altcoin season kicking off (XRP often lags then explodes)
- Positive regulatory clarity around Ripple’s remaining legal battles
Any one of those catalysts could flip sentiment almost overnight. Several of them feel closer than people realize.
Final Thoughts – Risk vs. Reward
Look, I’m not here to shill XRP or promise moonshots. The technical picture is undeniably bearish right now, and another 15–20% downside would surprise exactly nobody.
But when I step back and look at the broader picture – the stablecoin growth, the institutional inflows, the quiet return of real utility on the XRPL – it’s hard not to see asymmetric potential for patient investors.
Sometimes the best opportunities hide in the assets everyone has already written off.
Whether XRP is one of those assets? Only time will tell. But the data certainly makes you think twice before hitting that sell button.
Disclosure: The author holds a small position in XRP acquired prior to 2024. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
