XRP is hovering near $1.03, a level that leaves the token more than 71% below its July 2025 record high of $3.65 and back near prices associated with its 2018 trading range. For investors, the striking disconnect is that Ripple’s corporate momentum has accelerated even as XRP has lost ground.
That gap is now the central issue in the XRP investment case. Ripple has secured legal clarity, expanded payments infrastructure, launched a fast-growing stablecoin and reached a reported $50 billion valuation, yet XRP remains under pressure as only about 40% of Ripple Payments flows reportedly use the token.
Technically, XRP is sitting close to a critical support band between $0.95 and $1.00. If that zone fails, the market could test levels not seen since the prior crypto bear cycle, while a sustained recovery would first require a move back above near-term resistance around the 20-day EMA and then higher breakout levels.
Key Facts
- XRP traded near $1.03 to $1.04, more than 71% below its July 2025 all-time high of $3.65.
- Ripple Payments handled $1.3 trillion in transactions and works with more than 300 institutions across 55 countries.
- Only about 40% of Ripple Payments flow is estimated to use XRP directly.
- Seven U.S. spot XRP ETFs hold roughly $1.53 billion in assets and about 773 million XRP tokens.
- Ripple was valued at $50 billion after a $750 million buyback in March 2026.
XRP Price and Ripple Utility Gap
The market’s core question is no longer whether Ripple can win regulatory and institutional credibility. It largely has. The more difficult question is whether that success still translates into meaningful demand for XRP. So far, the answer has been inconsistent.
Ripple’s business has broadened meaningfully. The end of the SEC appeals in August 2025 removed a long-running legal overhang for retail sales of XRP. In December 2025, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted conditional approval for Ripple National Trust Bank, opening a path for nationwide custody, fiduciary services and stablecoin reserve management. Ripple also built out its payments footprint, expanded integrations and grew RLUSD, its dollar-backed stablecoin.
Yet XRP has not captured those gains in price. The reason appears to be structural: institutional users increasingly prefer stable settlement assets rather than a volatile bridge token. RLUSD, which reached a market capitalization of roughly $1.56 billion by March 2026, gives counterparties dollar-based settlement while reducing the need to hold XRP. That may strengthen Ripple’s enterprise offering, but it also weakens the direct utility argument that once underpinned the bullish case for the token.
Ripple’s corporate success is no longer automatically XRP’s success, and that distinction is now driving the token’s valuation debate.
Why on-ledger growth has not solved the XRP problem
Activity on the XRP Ledger has improved in several areas. Daily transactions reached 3 million on March 15, 2026, roughly triple mid-2025 averages, while real-world asset tokenization on the ledger exceeded $474 million and total represented value approached $1.5 billion. Those are notable signs of infrastructure growth.
But higher throughput has not created a comparable rise in XRP-denominated demand. Active accounts reportedly fell 51% year to date to 7,630, and fee burn remains negligible at about 27 XRP per day. In other words, the ledger can become busier while the token itself sees limited scarcity benefits or incremental utility. That distinction matters for valuation.
Implications for Investors
For investors, XRP now looks less like a pure adoption story and more like a token caught between improving enterprise fundamentals and weakening direct usage economics. ETF adoption has provided some validation, with seven U.S. spot products amassing $1.53 billion in assets, but fresh inflows have slowed sharply. When ETF net buying falls to under 1% of daily spot volume, it stops acting as a reliable support mechanism for price.
Supply also remains an important watch-point. Ripple’s escrow structure can release up to 1 billion XRP each month, with most re-locked, but net additions still matter. The August 2026 release reportedly added about 300 million tokens to circulating supply. At a price around $1.03, that implies roughly $309 million of potential supply overhang in a single month. Against weak ETF inflows and modest organic token demand, that dynamic can cap rallies.
Legislation is another major variable. The delayed Senate vote on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act pushed a key potential catalyst into September. For XRP, that matters more than for larger crypto assets with already established institutional frameworks. A statutory market-structure regime could improve confidence among banks, custodians and large allocators. Until then, XRP may continue trading more like a high-beta expression of broader crypto sentiment than a standalone Ripple success story.
From a portfolio perspective, the near-term setup is asymmetric. Support between $0.95 and $1.00 is crucial, while resistance is layered around $1.0843, $1.12, $1.2666 and then $1.45. A break above $1.45 would materially improve the chart structure, but absent stronger token-specific demand, upside may remain vulnerable to renewed supply and macro-driven volatility.
Investors should closely watch whether the share of Ripple Payments volume using XRP rises from the current 40% level, whether RLUSD growth increasingly occurs off-ledger or on rival chains, and whether ETF flows reaccelerate after any legislative progress. Those three indicators may say more about XRP’s medium-term outlook than headline milestones around Ripple alone.
The next phase for XRP is likely to depend on whether adoption shifts back toward the token itself rather than the broader Ripple ecosystem. Until that happens, the market may continue to reward Ripple’s infrastructure expansion without fully repricing XRP higher.