What is XRP's value-capture problem, and how would it be measured?

The full answer

What is the value-capture problem?

Ripple is a company and XRP is a token. On July 8, 2026, crypto.news wrote that Ripple Prime’s revenues belong to Ripple’s shareholders, not to XRP. It said the same holds for custody fees and stablecoin float income [1]. The same article said XRP holders receive no mechanical claim on the businesses themselves [1]. The question this raises follows on from whether Ripple’s success lifts XRP’s price. The point here is narrower: how much of Ripple’s activity turns into demand for the token.

The headline figures are large, but none of them is reported as an XRP figure. crypto.news reported on July 8, 2026 that Ripple Prime clears more than $3 trillion in trades a year for over 300 institutional clients [1]. Ripple said on November 5, 2025 that Ripple Payments volume had passed $95 billion [3]. CaptainAltcoin noted on September 10, 2026 that the $13 trillion figure does not mean that amount was settled using XRP [5].

Crypto.news set out three ways any business creates demand for a token: paying fees in it, posting it as collateral, or using it as the settlement asset [1]. I use the term “capture coefficient” for the share of each extra dollar entering Ripple’s system that becomes demand for XRP through inventory, collateral, lending, liquidity or settlement. I coined the term. This follows from those three routes. No source publishes a value for it.

How much does each route capture today?

Fees. crypto.news reported on July 8, 2026 that XRPL fees are fractions of a cent. It put total fee burn since 2012 at roughly 14 million XRP, against a 100 billion token supply [1]. The page on whether fee burns make XRP scarce covers this route in more detail.

Collateral. crypto.news said Ripple Prime accepts XRP as collateral for margin and settlement within its own brokerage. It described this as Ripple’s own brokerage accepting Ripple’s own asset, a path that “today mostly runs in a circle” [1]. The same article said collateral demand is real demand, because tokens posted as margin are tokens bought and held [1]. Ripple said on November 5, 2025 that Ripple Prime was expanding into collateralized lending for XRP [3]. The Crypto Times reported that Ripple Prime secured a $200 million asset-backed facility from Neuberger Specialty Finance in May 2026 [7]. ICOBench wrote in May 2026 that public data could not confirm whether the facility had been drawn against in material size [6].

As of September 30, 2026, I could not find any public statement of the XRP share of Ripple Prime collateral, Ripple Payments volume, or Ripple Treasury flows, so the XRP share of settlement remains an open question.

crypto.news summed up the three routes as follows: each path exists, each is narrow, and together they add up to “a sliver” [1]. It judged the fraction of Ripple Prime’s $3 trillion that becomes XRP demand today too small for any serious estimate to put a meaningful number on it [1].

Outside Ripple’s own products, Evernorth said on October 20, 2025 that it expected to raise over $1 billion, including $200 million from SBI [8]. It said net proceeds would primarily fund open-market XRP purchases, and that it would pursue institutional lending, liquidity provisioning and DeFi yield [8]. The same release said the deal was expected to close in Q1 2026, subject to shareholder approvals [8]. The page on how to measure how much XRP is actually being used breaks these channels down further.

How could the capture coefficient be estimated from public data?

The coefficient has a denominator and a numerator. Ripple said on April 1, 2026 that Ripple Treasury facilitated $13 trillion in payments volume in 2025 (company-reported) [4]. A secondary source notes that this does not mean $13 trillion was settled using XRP. The numerator is not established here. As of September 30, 2026, I could not find any source stating the XRP share of Ripple Prime collateral, Payments volume, or Treasury flows.

crypto.news listed three signals that can be checked from outside [1]:

• a brokerage or clearing venue that Ripple does not own announcing that it accepts XRP as margin collateral;
• Hidden Road’s post-trade activity moving onto the XRPL, which Ripple has committed to. crypto.news said this would show up in ledger throughput, in institutional wallets and in Ripple’s quarterly disclosures;
• the RLUSD share of Ripple’s own settlement flow.

It also named counter-signals: a DTCC working-group standard that specifies dealer-owned ledgers, the DTCC’s October full launch going ahead with no XRPL role, or Ripple Prime growing while its XRPL migration stays a press-release commitment [1].

There is one limit on this method. On July 25, 2026, crypto.news wrote that Ripple’s status as a private company allows selective disclosure of only the numbers that flatter it [2]. An XRP share reported by Ripple would therefore need checking against on-ledger data and third-party announcements. Tracking the direction of the ratio across periods, for one product at a time, is more useful than a single level. The page on building an XRP model that is not a price target applies this approach.

How does XRP’s capture compare with other network tokens such as ETH and SOL?

As of September 30, 2026, I could not find any measured comparison of how much network activity turns into token demand for ETH or SOL. One channel is shared. crypto.news reported that Ripple Prime CEO Mike Higgins named Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and Solana together as collateral for margin and settlement, calling this “the next step” in May [1]. The same article said that for collateral demand to matter at scale, firms that are not Ripple would need to accept and hold XRP as margin [1].

Who captures the value instead: Ripple, stablecoin issuers or banks?

Ripple’s shareholders. Ripple Prime’s revenues belong to them, crypto.news wrote on July 8, 2026 [1].

RLUSD. crypto.news said Ripple built RLUSD to capture the settlement flow that XRP’s volatility rules out. It said every institutional win through RLUSD is a win for Ripple and for the ledger, and “only residually for the token” [1]. Benzinga reported in June 2026 that Higgins described RLUSD as becoming part of Ripple Prime’s settlement and collateral strategy [10].

Ripple’s funding. crypto.news reported on July 25, 2026 that Ripple spent roughly $4 billion on acquisitions between 2023 and 2025 [2]. It said the money came in substantial part from programmatic XRP sales [2]. It also said the acquired businesses run primarily on fiat, traditional assets and RLUSD [2].

Banks and other ledgers. crypto.news reported that JPMorgan’s Kinexys runs a competing tokenization ledger [1]. It also said the DTCC’s tokenization service is not built on the XRPL [1]. The view from the other side, set out in how much of Ripple’s payment volume actually uses XRP, and the question of whether stablecoins will replace XRP, both bear on this split.

What is the strongest case against this critique?

Bulls argue that RLUSD adoption seeds the ledger with the institutional liquidity that XRP collateral and bridging would later plug into. crypto.news called this answer coherent. It also called it a claim about sequencing whose first half is observable and whose second half is not yet [1]. In its July 25, 2026 audit, crypto.news set out a “generous reading” of optionality against an “ungenerous reading”: that Ripple spent $4 billion reducing its dependence on XRP. It said the audit cannot resolve which reading wins [2].

The market’s verdict so far points one way. crypto.news wrote on July 8, 2026 that XRP slid through a year of institutional wins to trade near $1.13, down roughly 70% from its 2025 peak. It read this as the market pricing the discount described above [1].

The coefficient is above zero. Crypto.news (July 8, 2026) judged that only a small fraction of Ripple Prime’s $3 trillion translates into XRP demand today [1], so the current XRP-using activity cited here is small but not zero. Ripple said on April 1, 2026 that Ripple Treasury facilitated $13 trillion in payments volume in 2025 (company-reported), but a secondary source notes this does not mean $13 trillion was settled using XRP, so XRP demand from it is not established. No source cited here shows XRP demand in the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars.

What would show the coefficient rising?

The three signals and the counter-signals above are the tests. The page on what would show the XRP institutional thesis is working sets them against dates.