Key Points
- XRP positioned itself as a coin for financial institutions.
- Those institutions haven't exactly showed up to buy it or use it.
- That's becoming a bit of a problem for its investment thesis.
With its price down by 70% from its all-time high set in mid-2025, it's natural for investors to wonder if XRP (XRP -3.74%) is priced at a bargain, and perhaps even one so deep as to make it the best cryptocurrency that it's possible to buy. But price isn't the factor that determines whether an asset is a bargain; the fundamentals are the more important part.
On that front, Ripple, XRP's issuer, has spent a handful of years and considerable effort courting banks and other financial institutions around the globe. Ripple has also worked extensively on expanding the capabilities of XRP's blockchain, the XRP Ledger (XRPL). Has any of that work actually made XRP a more appealing coin to buy?
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The XRP Ledger isn't winning in tokenized assets
Financial institutions are evaluating blockchain technology to manage tokenized assets.
Tokenization is the process of recording the ownership data of an asset, such as a Treasury bill or a stock, on a crypto token that's held and exchanged on a blockchain. The XRP Ledger was home to $642.9 million in tradeable tokenized assets as of Nov. 9, making it the ninth-largest among blockchain networks. Ethereum, the destination for the biggest collection of those assets, hosted $15.1 billion, so the XRPL is very far from being a leader despite developing its own tech explicitly to make its tokenized asset features more appealing to banks.
XRP - XRP
CRYPTO · As of 1:28 AM ET 11/11/26
Key data points
What's more, just $22.5 million worth of tokenized assets changed hands on the network in the 30 days ending Nov. 9. And that volume was incredibly lumpy, too; in the last week of October, only $4,620 in tokenized assets were traded. That's a strong sign that there isn't really an active ecosystem of tokenized assets, as the overwhelming majority of the tradeable assets on the chain are sitting inert.
The data on another potential growth area for XRP, AI agents, largely tell the same story. The XRPL's AI Hub recorded a cumulative total of $58,683 in payments performed autonomously by AI agents on the ledger as of early November. Other networks saw $42.6 million in cumulative x402 stablecoin settlements as of Nov. 9.
In other words, in crypto's two hottest growth areas, XRP is a niche player at best.
Can Ripple's institutional push turn things around?
Last year, Ripple made a spate of acquisitions to build out its capabilities in crypto custody, trade settlement, and liquidity provision for institutional players. But that's not something likely to make XRP a better buy at this juncture.
In theory, if institutions actually respond to those efforts by working with Ripple, onboarding their capital to the XRPL, and tapping its various services, it probably still wouldn't boost XRP's price much, since XRP isn't even needed to use most of what Ripple offers. And even if Ripple's services did use XRP in some way, its transaction fees are so low that the return to holders wouldn't be meaningful.
Thus, XRP is probably not the best cryptocurrency to buy right now. If the XRPL's performance metrics change, it still might not be enough to change that.
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