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 beneath two months, front-loading lots of pleasure right into a slender 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’s not 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 operating via RippleNet over a yr, and to XRPL address-based and day by 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 nations, with roughly 40% actively utilizing XRP for On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) reasonably than simply messaging rails.
ODL processed greater than $15 billion of cross-border funds in 2024, a 32% year-over-year improve, with Asia-Pacific accounting for roughly 56% of quantity.
ODL now spans greater than 70 hall pairs and covers an estimated 80% of main international 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 site visitors via XRP, not the entire RippleNet consumer rely.
International 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 international funds. Actual adoption on this axis would seem like ODL volumes compounding from the present $15 billion and the baseline, greater than half of RippleNet shoppers opting into XRP, and hall growth past the APAC remittance niches that dominate at present.
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 day by day energetic 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.
“Fee” transactions accounted for about 55.7% of whole exercise within the third quarter of 2025, with day by 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 commonplace.
RLUSD is already a billion-plus-dollar asset with a fabric however nonetheless minority presence on XRPL, and XRPL’s RWA footprint is now a whole lot of hundreds of thousands reasonably than hobby-scale. Nonetheless, it stays tiny versus USDT and USDC on Ethereum and Solana.
Sturdy on-chain adoption means three issues without delay: fee transactions remaining the dominant kind and rising in absolute phrases, RWA capitalization and RLUSD utilization on XRPL rising reasonably than migrating to Ethereum, and energetic addresses and new wallets increasing reasonably 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 day by day buying and selling quantity was round $1.73 billion in early 2025, a roughly 22% year-over-year improve. 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 day by 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 day by day CLOB merchants. Moreover, common day by 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 take a look at
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” reasonably 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 shoppers opting into XRP reasonably than fiat-only rails, and hall growth with disclosed volumes reasonably than pilot language.
Second, XRPL’s on-chain funds base of roughly 1.8 million day by day transactions, 6.9 million addresses, and the vast majority of fee exercise would wish to proceed rising reasonably than plateau.
A sturdy story has these curves sloping up even when worth and ETF flows are flat: extra fee transactions, extra energetic 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 take a look at in a stagnation state of affairs is whether or not order-book depth, bid-ask spreads, and open curiosity keep sturdy 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 just a few hundred million in RWA market cap and about $88.8 million of RLUSD on XRPL into genuinely system-level collateral, reasonably 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 handle metrics roll over, RWA and RLUSD progress shift off-ledger, and liquidity scores slip as soon as ETF inflows cool, the trustworthy conclusion is that the 2025-26 XRP commerce was principally about ETFs, not structural demand. The plumbing will determine.