4 XRP spot ETFs now commerce within the US, with mixed belongings of $941.7 million as of Dec. 18. Grayscale’s GXRP holds $148.1 million, Canary Capital’s XRPC $373.6 million, Franklin Templeton’s XRPZ $189 million, and Bitwise’s XRP ETF $215.6 million.
That stack grew from roughly $336 million at launch in November to present ranges in underneath two months, front-loading a whole lot of pleasure right into a slim window.
XRP now runs two parallel tales: an ETF layer that has already captured regulated US demand, and a funds and infrastructure layer that also has to show it may well stand by itself if these flows plateau.
The query is not whether or not XRP has generated curiosity for its ETF merchandise, it is whether or not the asset has sturdy demand anchored in cross-border flows, stablecoin rails, and chronic liquidity that survives when ETF AUM stops climbing.
ETF publicity has already outgrown the $293 million of RLUSD sitting on XRPL as of Dec. 19, based on DefiLlama knowledge. Nonetheless, it isn’t comparable in magnitude to the $15 billion in Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity processed in 2024.
Meaning the ETF wrapper is measurable however nonetheless comparatively skinny in comparison with the complete circulation working via RippleNet over a yr, and to XRPL address-based and each day funds.
If ETF flows stagnate, the reply about actual adoption sits within the plumbing, not the tickers.
Funds and hall actuality in 2025
RippleNet now counts greater than 300 monetary establishments throughout 55-plus international locations, with roughly 40% actively utilizing XRP for On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) moderately than simply messaging rails.
ODL processed greater than $15 billion of cross-border funds in 2024, a 32% year-over-year enhance, with Asia-Pacific accounting for roughly 56% of quantity.
ODL now spans greater than 70 hall pairs and covers an estimated 80% of main world remittance corridors. DAS Analysis places ODL quantity at about $1.3 billion simply within the second quarter of 2025 alone, framed as a part of Ripple’s push to make XRP a core funds infrastructure.
RippleNet as an entire, together with corridors that don’t but settle in XRP, is processing greater than $15 billion in cross-border transaction quantity per thirty days as of 2025.
That distinction issues: many establishments use RippleNet messaging and fiat-only settlement. XRP solely seems the place pre-funding prices and FX spreads justify taking token volatility threat. The related metrics are ODL quantity, hall protection, and the share of companions routing visitors via XRP, not the whole RippleNet consumer rely.
World cross-border fee volumes vary from $130 trillion to $150 trillion yearly, based on SWIFT-linked estimates.
Even $30 billion in annual ODL quantity is significant for XRP however marginal for world funds. Actual adoption on this axis would appear to be ODL volumes compounding from the present $15 billion and the baseline, greater than half of RippleNet purchasers opting into XRP, and hall growth past the APAC remittance niches that dominate immediately.
On-chain exercise past hypothesis
XRPL dealt with roughly 1.8 million transactions per day within the third quarter of 2025, up about 9% quarter-on-quarter from 1.6 million within the earlier quarter, with typical finality in 3 to five seconds.
Common each day lively sender addresses reached about 25,300, with 447,200 new addresses created within the quarter, bringing whole addresses to roughly 6.9 million. Weekly fee counts are up roughly 430% versus 2023 ranges. Funds stay the dominant use case.
“Cost” transactions accounted for about 55.7% of whole exercise within the third quarter of 2025, with each day fee counts round 989,600.
The RWA angle provides weight. XRPL’s tokenized real-world asset market cap hit $347 million on the finish of the third quarter, up 193% quarter-on-quarter, based on rwa.xyz knowledge. The motion was pushed by US Treasury funds like Ondo’s OUSG, business paper, and real-estate tokens.
Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin launched in December 2024 on XRPL and Ethereum, and its whole provide sits at $1.3 billion as of Dec. 19. Inside XRPL particularly, RLUSD had a market cap of roughly $293 million, up by 41% previously 30 days.
Ripple is now piloting RLUSD on L2s like Optimism and Base by way of Wormhole’s NTT customary.
RLUSD is already a billion-plus-dollar asset with a fabric however nonetheless minority presence on XRPL, and XRPL’s RWA footprint is now tons of of hundreds of thousands moderately than hobby-scale. Nonetheless, it stays tiny versus USDT and USDC on Ethereum and Solana.
Sturdy on-chain adoption means three issues directly: fee transactions remaining the dominant sort and rising in absolute phrases, RWA capitalization and RLUSD utilization on XRPL rising moderately than migrating to Ethereum, and lively addresses and new wallets increasing moderately than spiking round worth motion and retracing.
Liquidity construction and institutional plumbing
Kaiko’s crypto asset rating for the third quarter locations XRP tied with Ethereum in second place, with an AA rating of 95 out of 100, incomes full marks for liquidity, market depth, alternate availability, institutional adoption, and derivatives maturity, on par with Bitcoin.
XRP’s common each day buying and selling quantity was round $1.73 billion in early 2025, a roughly 22% year-over-year enhance. XRP is handled by market makers extra like a top-tier asset than a fringe alt, no matter ETF headlines.
On the DEX and AMM layer on XRPL, common each day CLOB quantity for fungible issued currencies was about $7.9 million within the third quarter, with round 1 million CLOB trades and roughly 7,800 each day CLOB merchants. Moreover, common each day AMM quantity was about $1.7 million.
These numbers are small versus centralized venues however illustrate fragmented liquidity: deep off-chain order books and perps versus pretty modest on-ledger liquidity, even because the community turns into extra composable with AMMs, oracles, and upcoming smart-contract extensions.
Adoption check
Assume ETF AUM stabilizes round $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion. What must transfer over the following 12 to 24 months to name XRP’s demand “sturdy” moderately than ETF-driven?
First, ODL volumes and hall protection would wish to continue to grow from the $15 billion registered in 2024, and from the 70-plus hall pairs.
Meaning whole annual ODL quantity getting into the tens of billions and staying there, greater than half of RippleNet purchasers opting into XRP moderately than fiat-only rails, and hall growth with disclosed volumes moderately than pilot language.
Second, XRPL’s on-chain funds base of roughly 1.8 million each day transactions, 6.9 million addresses, and the vast majority of fee exercise would wish to proceed rising moderately than plateau.
A sturdy story has these curves sloping up even when worth and ETF flows are flat: extra fee transactions, extra lively addresses, extra RWA issuance, and RLUSD quantity on XRPL particularly, not simply on Ethereum.
Third, liquidity high quality would wish to carry up. Kaiko’s AA, 95/100 profile already has XRP’s depth and spinoff construction on par with Ethereum. The check in a stagnation state of affairs is whether or not order-book depth, bid-ask spreads, and open curiosity keep strong when ETF internet flows normalize.
In the event that they do, it suggests a base of market-maker and corridor-driven demand that is not chasing ETF narratives.
Fourth, RLUSD and tokenized belongings on XRPL would wish to develop from a couple of hundred million in RWA market cap and about $88.8 million of RLUSD on XRPL into genuinely system-level collateral, moderately than remaining a sidecar to the a lot bigger Ethereum DeFi stack.
If these 4 issues occur whereas ETF AUM is flat, XRP adoption is actual: ETF merchandise are simply one other entry channel into an asset whose demand is anchored in cross-border flows, stablecoin rails, tokenized treasuries, and deep liquidity.
If ODL volumes stall, fee and deal with metrics roll over, RWA and RLUSD progress shift off-ledger, and liquidity scores slip as soon as ETF inflows cool, the sincere conclusion is that the 2025-26 XRP commerce was principally about ETFs, not structural demand. The plumbing will resolve.
