Why do so many crypto people dislike XRP (the "XRP Army" critique)?

The full answer

What are the separate strands of the critique?

The dislike usually bundles several separate claims. The ones this page tests are Ripple’s large holdings and its sales from escrow, the end of Ripple’s quarterly sales reports, the gap between Ripple’s business and demand for XRP, the SEC case, the default validator list, and viral claims spread by promoters. The evidence is strong on some strands and thin on others, and each section below says which.

Many viral claims about XRP are checked one by one on viral XRP rumors checked.

XRPL.org itself says list publishers “wield significant power in selecting which validators are widely trusted.”[16] Researchers Amores-Sesar, Cachin and Mićić argue in an OPODIS 2020 paper that the abstract protocol “may violate safety and liveness in several simple executions under relatively benign network assumptions.”[17] XRPL.org’s own documentation says that further research showed “in the worst case scenario, 90% overlap was required to prevent a fork,” where 60% had first been believed enough.[16]

Why does Ripple’s XRP holding draw criticism?

Ripple’s XRP page says 80 billion XRP were gifted to Ripple so that the company could build use cases around the digital asset [1]. Ripple reported holding 37,656,053,914 XRP, with 32,600,000,000 XRP placed in escrow and 62,329,587,596 XRP distributed, as of June 30, 2026 [1]. On March 31, 2025, Ripple reported 4,562,433,147 XRP held plus 37,130,000,005 XRP in on-ledger escrow [2].

Ripple’s Q1 2025 report described the mechanism: Ripple cannot use escrowed XRP until the escrow releases it monthly, the remainder is put back into escrow each month, and in some months a reduced amount is returned [2]. How much of that reaches the market is tested on the page Is Ripple dumping XRP on holders?, and the original split is covered in how the original 100 billion XRP was distributed.

The sharpest version of this strand comes from crypto.news. Its July 25, 2026 audit reported that Ripple spent roughly $4 billion on acquisitions between 2023 and 2025, including Metaco ($250 million), Hidden Road ($1.25 billion) and GTreasury (about $1 billion) [4]. It said the money came in substantial part from years of programmatic XRP sales, supplemented by equity rounds [4]. Its July 8 article put it more bluntly: holders bear the dilution that finances the buildout [3]. The same audit also said there is nothing improper in the structure, because the sales were disclosed in their era and the escrow is public [4].

It refers to what a CoinDesk essay by Jeff Wilser, published June 13, 2023, calls "XRP’s uber-passionate supporters.

The essay says that, to outsiders, the XRP Army “is known mostly for its flaying of Ripple critics.”[14] The essay quotes David Floyd, who wrote for CoinDesk in 2018 that the XRP Army "distinguishes itself mainly through scale and organization.

Floyd added that questioning another coin’s merits might bring out “a handful of trolls,” but “measured by volume, intensity, duration and consistency, the attack will pale in comparison to an XRP Army operation.”[14] The same essay gives the supporters’ view: they “believe the SEC unfairly targeted Ripple for securities violations while mysteriously giving Ethereum a free pass.”[14]

It found that those buyers “reasonably expected that Ripple would use the capital it received from its sales to improve the XRP ecosystem and thereby increase the price of XRP.”[19] According to the SEC, the district court’s final judgment imposed a $125,035,150 civil penalty on Ripple and an injunction.[20] Earlier, on May 5, 2015, FinCEN assessed a $700,000 civil money penalty against Ripple Labs and its subsidiary XRP II for, among other violations, selling XRP without registering as a money services business.[21]

According to the Ethereum Foundation’s July 22, 2014 sale announcement, Ethereum’s sale set up “two endowment pools, each 0.099x the initial quantity of ether sold,” one for early contributors and one for the Ethereum Foundation.[23] Stellar.org says about 50 billion lumens exist and that its foundation “retains the other 30 billion or so.”[24] In our analysis, a large founding allocation held by a company or foundation is therefore not unique to XRP, though the holder and the size differ.

Why did Ripple stop publishing its quarterly XRP reports?

Ripple said on May 5, 2025 that it had published the XRP Markets Report since 2017 to provide transparency into its holdings, and that it would sunset the report in its current form starting in Q2 2025 [2]. It gave its reason in the same report: its transparency had been used against the company, most notably by former SEC leadership [2]. Protos reported the decision on May 6, 2025 [6]. The September 29, 2026 check of Ripple’s XRP page recorded holdings, distributed and escrow figures as of June 30, 2026 [1].

Do Ripple’s products create demand for XRP?

AllAboutXRP (updated September 8, 2026) reported that Ripple sells payments, custody, stablecoin and tokenization products that can work without XRP [5]. It found clear first-party evidence of XRP use at SBI Remit, while many other bank announcements describe Ripple Payments, RippleNet, custody or RLUSD without confirming XRP as the settlement asset [5].

crypto.news reported on July 8, 2026 that inside Ripple’s own product stack the settlement asset is predominantly RLUSD, Ripple’s dollar stablecoin, not XRP [3]. It put total XRPL fee burn since 2012 at roughly 14 million XRP against a 100 billion supply [3]. Its July 25 audit said the acquired businesses run primarily on fiat, traditional assets and RLUSD [4]. On ownership, crypto.news said Ripple Prime’s revenues belong to Ripple’s shareholders, not to XRP, and that holders receive no mechanical claim on the businesses [3].

The same publication described the skeptics’ position directly. Skeptics do not deny the infrastructure is real; they deny that infrastructure owned by the token’s issuer, without third-party adoption, is token demand, and crypto.news said that on the evidence to date they have been right [3]. It added that the market has learned to discount announcements in which Ripple is both counterparties [3]. This strand is examined in full at Does Ripple’s success mean XRP’s price goes up?.

An independent tracker cited by crypto.news put the remaining escrow at about 31.28 billion XRP after the September 2026 release.[15]

In a January 22, 2026 interview, reported by crypto.news on September 25, 2026, Brad Garlinghouse said that in some cases “a stablecoin is going to solve that problem better.”[22] crypto.news also reports that Ripple’s Payments page says businesses can settle transactions “using RLUSD, USDC, USDT or fiat, depending on their requirements.”[22]

Garlinghouse said “XRP is the best bridge asset” could be the answer for one transaction, and crypto.news describes his statement as conditional, one that “did not say stablecoins are universally better than XRP.”[22] The evidence for and against is weighed on does Ripple’s success lift XRP.

What role does the SEC case play?

Ripple’s Q1 2025 report said the SEC agreed to reduce the proposed penalty from $125 million to $50 million [2]. Ripple’s April 17, 2026 blog said that by mid-2025 the legal uncertainty that had kept institutional capital at a distance had resolved [7]. Both are Ripple’s own descriptions. The case itself is set out in What was the SEC vs Ripple lawsuit about?.

Does the default validator list feed the critique?

Ripple’s XRP page says validators agree on the order and outcome of transactions every 3 to 5 seconds [1]. No dated public evidence on the default validator list has been found for this page as of October 1, 2026. The question is handled on Does the default validator list make the XRP Ledger centralized?.

XRPL.org says: “Each server operator has full control over which validators are in their UNL.”[16] Its FAQ says that, as of July 2023, “Ripple runs only 1 of the 35 validators in the default UNL.”[18] The full argument is on the validator centralization critique.

How do online promoters feed the critique?

One documented case: crypto.news reported that on March 2, 2026 a company called Hidden Road Partners CIV US LLC appeared in the participant directory of the National Securities Clearing Corporation, and within hours the listing was declared proof that XRP was being wired into the DTCC [3]. Hidden Road is Ripple Prime [3]. crypto.news said none of the listings puts XRP inside the DTCC [3]. It also reported that in late May 2026 the DTCC announced it would integrate the Stellar network, and that the DTCC has not named the XRPL [3]. As of October 1, 2026, no source measures the behaviour of XRP promoters as a group.

Do these critiques apply equally to other large coins?

As of October 1, 2026, no sourced figures on premines, foundation treasuries or validator sets of other large coins are available here, so no like-for-like comparison is made. One comparison is held: crypto.news (July 25, 2026) contrasted Ripple with Circle, which took a public listing with quarterly disclosure, and said Ripple’s privacy allows selective disclosure of the numbers that flatter [4].

What is the strongest evidence against the critics?

crypto.news reported the bulls’ answer: RLUSD adoption brings institutional liquidity to the ledger that XRP-based collateral and bridging could later use [3]. It called that answer coherent, and a claim about sequencing whose second half is not yet observable [3]. Its July 25 audit described a “generous reading” of optionality against an “ungenerous reading” that Ripple has spent $4 billion reducing its dependence on XRP, and said the audit cannot resolve which wins [4].

Ripple reported on April 17, 2026 seven US spot XRP ETFs with $1.53 billion in assets and 773 million XRP in custody [7]. Ripple also reported that Goldman Sachs disclosed a $153.8 million position in spot XRP ETFs in its Q4 2025 13F filing [7]. SBI Remit’s use of XRP is backed by first-party evidence, according to AllAboutXRP [5]. The case that XRP is not a failure is set out on Is XRP dead, a scam, or a failed experiment?.