How does XRP compare with Bitcoin and other major coins?

The full answer

This page compares XRP with other major coins using dated, published figures. Those figures cover XRP’s size, supply, ledger use and institutional markets. The cited reports carry no matching bitcoin figures, so the bitcoin side is listed under what is not yet known rather than filled in from memory.

The sources cited here publish no matching bitcoin figures.

How big is XRP next to other major coins?

CoinDesk described XRP on May 12, 2026 as the world’s fourth-largest token by market capitalization [1]. The same report said XRP was down 39% over the previous six months and well off its July 2025 all-time high near $3.65 [1].

At the end of the second quarter of 2026, XRP closed at $1.04, down 20% from the end of the first quarter, and its market capitalization fell 18.9% to $65.8 billion, according to CCN’s report of Blockworks’ State of XRP data [2]. The longer price record is on the page about XRP’s price and market cap history.

How does XRP’s supply work?

Finbold reported in September 2026 that XRP has a fixed maximum supply of 100 billion tokens, and that roughly one-third of it remains locked in escrow, with each release date enforced by the XRP Ledger [3]. crypto.news reported that Ripple placed 55 billion XRP into escrow in December 2017, and that Ripple said the arrangement would let up to 1 billion XRP become available each month [4].

After the September 1, 2026 release, about 31.28 billion XRP remained in on-ledger escrow, according to an independent tracker cited by crypto.news [4]. The same report said an escrow unlock makes XRP available to Ripple but does not prove any market sale [4]. Finbold reported that the increase in potentially circulating XRP has generally averaged 200 million to 300 million tokens a month, not the full 1 billion released [3].

Fees remove a small amount of XRP. CCN, citing Blockworks, reported that about 40,600 XRP were burned in the second quarter of 2026, with an average transaction cost of $0.00024 [2]. Why the supply is so large, and how it compares with bitcoin’s, is the subject of how many XRP exist.

How the XRP Ledger reaches agreement without mining, and whether that changes its security, is covered on the page about how XRP is kept secure. The sources cited here do not describe either network’s security model.

What is XRP used for, and how does its ledger activity compare?

Messari’s first-quarter 2026 report, as summarized by crypto.news, said XRP is tied to network use through transaction fees, account reserves, liquidity, asset ownership and bridging across currencies [5]. The same report said the XRP Ledger supports payments, token issuance, decentralized liquidity, real-world assets and stablecoins [5].

Messari reported that average daily XRP Ledger transactions rose 35.3% in the first quarter of 2026, from 1.83 million to 2.48 million [5]. CCN, citing Blockworks, reported 222.4 million transactions in the second quarter [2].

Against other networks, stablecoins give one measured comparison. CryptoSlate reported on July 6, 2026 that the XRP Ledger held about 0.29% of a global stablecoin supply of $311.39 billion [6]. For Ripple’s own stablecoin, CryptoSlate reported RLUSD on the XRP Ledger at $844.6 million against $789.8 million on Ethereum, with the XRP Ledger holding roughly 51.7% of RLUSD’s total supply [6]. A wider set of measures across chains is on the page comparing XRP Ledger activity with Ethereum, Solana and Stellar.

How do institutional markets for XRP compare with bitcoin’s?

CME Group said its XRP futures generated $3.7 billion in notional volume in May 2026, the contracts’ first anniversary month [7]. Bitcoin’s CME volume for the same period is not given in the cited reports.

CoinDesk reported on May 12, 2026 that spot XRP ETFs held total net assets of $1.18 billion, about 1.3% of XRP’s market cap [1]. CCN, citing Blockworks, reported that global XRP exchange-traded products drew $253.6 million in net inflows in the second quarter of 2026, while their assets under management fell 17% to $1.99 billion because of the price decline [2]. A side-by-side with bitcoin ETF flows belongs on the page asking whether the spot ETFs pushed XRP’s price up, and the pace question is on whether XRP is being institutionalized faster than bitcoin was.

How volatile is XRP compared with bitcoin?

The cited sources give XRP’s moves but not bitcoin’s. XRP fell 39% in the six months to May 12, 2026, according to CoinDesk [1], and 20% in the second quarter of 2026, according to CCN citing Blockworks [2]. The page on XRP volatility and its link to bitcoin is planned to cover measured volatility and correlation with bitcoin.

What is the strongest evidence against XRP in this comparison?

The main critique in these sources is that ledger growth has not carried through to the token. CCN, reporting Blockworks data on August 20, 2026, described a widening gap between the network’s adoption and the market performance of XRP [2]. CCN wrote that growth in stablecoins and tokenization strengthens the case for the XRP Ledger as institutional infrastructure, but not necessarily for XRP as an investment [2]. It also wrote that billions of dollars can move across the ledger without creating substantial fee demand or meaningfully reducing XRP’s supply [2].

Some usage measures fell. In the second quarter of 2026, average daily active addresses declined 11%, payment volume fell 27% and decentralized exchange volume dropped 36%, according to CCN citing Blockworks [2]. Tokenized real-world assets on the ledger reached $4.46 billion, but the freely transferable part fell 5% to $386.1 million [2]. The reasons an institution might pass over XRP are set out on why institutions might choose not to use XRP.