Why isn't XRP's price going up, even with more adoption?

The full answer

How much did XRP’s price fall while adoption grew?

XRP closed the second quarter of 2026 at $1.04, down 20% from the end of the first quarter, and its market capitalization fell 18.9% to $65.8 billion, CCN reported on 20 August 2026 [1]. CCN described the quarter as a widening gap between the network’s adoption and the market performance of its native asset [1].

The fall ran longer than one quarter. The 21Shares XRP ETF’s quarterly filing, as summarised by StockTitan, states that XRP’s price declined 42.91% between 31 December 2025 and 30 June 2026 [4]. CoinDesk reported on 12 May 2026 that XRP was down 39% over the previous six months despite ETF interest [6].

How far is XRP below its all-time high?

One cited source, CoinMarketCap, gives a peak figure: an all-time high of $3.84 on 4 January 2018. CoinMarketCap’s XRP page, whose capture date is not known, showed a price of $1.49, a market cap of $93.9 billion, and an all-time high of $3.84 on 4 January 2018, with the price 61.14% below that high [3]. CoinDesk, on 12 May 2026, reported that XRP was down 39% over the past six months despite ETF interest and still well off its July 2025 all-time high near $3.65. The CoinMarketCap page does not state how its peak was measured. The full price record is in XRP’s price and market cap history.

Which adoption measures grew in 2026?

XRPL-native stablecoin supply rose 195% quarter over quarter to $825.5 million in Q2 2026, according to CCN’s summary of Blockworks’ State of XRP report [1]. CCN reported that RLUSD supply on the ledger rose 257% to $676.9 million in the same quarter, 82% of the ledger’s stablecoin market at quarter end [1]. Stablecoin transfer volume rose 208% to about $10 billion, and RLUSD generated about $9 billion of it, up from $2.6 billion in Q1, CCN reported [1]. The represented value of tokenized real-world assets reached a record $4.46 billion in Q2 2026, up 103% from Q1 [1].

Growth continued after the quarter. On 25 September 2026, Analytics Insight reported, citing DefiLlama, that XRP Ledger stablecoins totalled about $1.159 billion, of which RLUSD was about $1.067 billion, or 92.1% [7].

Which measures fell in the same period?

The ledger processed 222.4 million transactions in Q2 2026, its second-highest quarterly total, but average daily active addresses fell 11%, payment volume fell 27% and decentralized exchange volume fell 36%, CCN reported [1]. Freely transferable, distributed tokenized assets fell 5% to $386.1 million in the quarter [1].

Evernorth’s own quarterly ledger report, published 2 September 2026, says accounts transacting fell from 33,145 to 16,587 a day and new wallets from 6,617 to 2,783 over the six quarters to Q2 2026, both series lows [5]. Evernorth also reports that XRP-paired AMM pools grew 26% over those six quarters while trading through them fell 74% [5].

Why doesn’t more ledger activity lift XRP’s price?

CCN separates the two: the XRP Ledger is the infrastructure that supports stablecoins, payments and tokenized assets, XRP is its native asset, and growth in one does not automatically produce equivalent appreciation in the other [1]. Analytics Insight states that market trading determines XRP’s price [7].

Fees add little demand. The average transaction cost fell to $0.00024 in Q2 2026 and only about 40,600 XRP were burned in the quarter, so billions of dollars can move across the ledger without substantial fee demand or a meaningful cut to XRP’s supply, CCN reported [1].

CoinDesk reported in March 2026 that the ledger’s growing activity is increasingly driven by RLUSD and tokenized assets that flow through XRP as a bridge currency but do not create sustained demand for the token [2]. CoinDesk added that a payment using XRP for three seconds does not create the same buy pressure as staking ETH for months [2]. It cited DeFiLlama showing total value locked on the ledger at $47.54 million, and concluded that XRP’s market cap was still overwhelmingly driven by speculative positioning and ETF expectations [2].

From these two sources, more payment flow does not need a matching rise in XRP held. A token held for seconds can serve many payments, so ledger volume cannot be multiplied into a demand figure for XRP. Ripple designed RLUSD to hold a one-dollar value, Analytics Insight reported [7], so its growth raises the ledger’s dollar totals without needing XRP’s price to move. How much of the growth touches XRP at all is the subject of XRP’s value-capture problem, and whether Ripple’s business has to lift the token is covered in does Ripple’s success lift XRP.

Did trading and derivatives activity fall too?

Yes. Centralized exchange spot volume fell 54% to $57.6 billion in Q2 2026, and perpetual futures volume fell 44% to $154.9 billion, CCN reported [1]. Borrowed-money trading is covered in XRP derivatives and liquidations. Price swings are covered in XRP’s volatility and bitcoin correlation.

The price fell while trading interest also fell across spot and derivatives venues. No public source separates how much of the fall came from market-wide moves and how much from XRP-specific selling.

Were funds still buying XRP?

Global XRP exchange-traded products took in $253.6 million of net inflows in Q2 2026, up 45% from Q1, while their assets under management fell 17% to $1.99 billion because of the price decline, CCN reported [1]. Evernorth reported that US spot XRP ETFs took in $273 million across the quarter, with net inflows in all three months [5]. On 12 May 2026, CoinDesk put cumulative net inflows across all XRP spot ETFs at $1.35 billion and total net assets at $1.18 billion, about 1.3% of XRP’s market cap [6].

Fund buying was positive in a quarter when the price fell 20%, so other selling was larger than fund buying. No public source shows who sold. Whether Ripple’s own sales are part of it is covered in is Ripple dumping XRP.

What is the strongest evidence against this reading?

The opposing case is that adoption has not yet reached XRP but could. CoinDesk, in the same March 2026 article, called tokenized assets the one area where the data supports the bull case, citing $461 million in distributed and $1.5 billion in represented asset value [2]. CCN wrote in August 2026 that stablecoin and tokenization growth strengthens the case for the XRP Ledger as institutional infrastructure, though not necessarily for XRP as an investment, and that XRP may catch up if activity creates sustained demand for it as liquidity, collateral or a bridge currency [1]. CCN pointed to a proposed native lending protocol that would support fixed-term loans and single-asset vaults [1]. Evernorth reported that those amendments, XLS-65 and XLS-66, were still in validator voting and not active at the end of Q2 2026 [5]. Evernorth also argues that deeper stablecoin balances raise the size of payments the ledger can settle, and calls the pool count capacity [5].

Fund inflows in Q2 2026 are the other counterweight [1][5]. The case that institutional money is arriving is set out in is institutional capital flowing into XRP, and the question of whether expected growth is already in the price is on is future adoption priced in. The broader list of forces behind the price is on what drives XRP’s price.