Why Ripple’s $16 trillion payment volume isn’t boosting XRP

Buying XRP doesn’t give you shares in Ripple, although the company’s growing list of new ventures and financial partners makes it easy to assume their fortunes should move together.

Ripple can earn a lot of money from those relationships without passing a dollar to token holders, who have no claim on its profits.

XRP did rise during the latest round of announcements, climbing from $1.29 on Oct. 25 to $1.32 on Oct. 28, a small gain (but still a gain) of about 2.3%. However, that still left it roughly 11% below its September close, despite another week of recognizable names signing up for Ripple’s services.

Over the same September-to-October window, Bitcoin lost about 2.7%, while Ethereum fell approximately 12.2%, so XRP wasn’t unusually weak compared with every major cryptocurrency.

That's why the price action doesn't really tell us what holders and traders think about these announcements. The announcements themselves, on the other hand, tell us what customers plan to use in the coming weeks and months.

Some give institutions better access to XRP, while others focus on a dollar-backed asset that Ripple sells alongside it.

Ripple sells financial software and services, while XRP is the cryptocurrency native to its XRP Ledger, the public blockchain usually shortened to XRPL.

XRP pays transaction costs on that network and can work as an intermediary between different assets, but customers can use some Ripple services without choosing XRP as the asset they send.

Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin is designed to maintain a value of one US dollar, backed by reserves that include dollars and short-term US government securities. Businesses moving RLUSD choose a dollar-denominated asset rather than taking the price exposure that comes with holding XRP.

Institutions can also pay Ripple for cash-management software or digital asset custody without becoming an XRP investor. Ripple’s $900 million revenue target reflects growth across all of its products, including acquired businesses, and refers to its projected annualized revenue pace at year-end rather than money already earned during 2026.

On Oct. 26, the company said it had received final approval for a national trust bank, with approved activities including managing RLUSD-related reserves and providing digital-asset custody. The charter expands what Ripple can offer institutions without requiring those customers to buy XRP.