1 Trend That Could Drive XRP Higher and Higher in 2026

In the past, money moved more slowly than information. But now, XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) can close that gap, enabling capital to flit across international boundaries in seconds. That's a key capability, and it's also why the coin is exposed to a big trend that could drive its price higher in 2026.

Here's what you need to know.

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Tokenization will keep attracting institutions

The trend we're talking about here is real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, which sounds a lot more confusing than it really is. It means representing ownership of an asset like a stock or a property as a crypto token that can be transferred and managed via a blockchain, like the XRP Ledger (XRPL).

In late January 2026, public blockchains collectively managed a bit over $24 billion of tokenized RWAs, skewed toward government debt, tokenized commodities, and private credit. At this point in 2022, there were less than $1 billion in tokenized assets in existence. So this is a real rapid growth market which exists today, even if it's not yet a mainstream one like the stock market.

The point of tokenizing assets is that they can settle 24/7, update their ownership records automatically, and support features like whitelists or asset transfer restrictions without a separate reconciliation step. Therefore, they're potentially a bit more appealing to both financial institutions and regulators, as they can make the auditing process much easier (in theory).

What has to go right for XRP to benefit?

The XRP Ledger is, at its core, a payment and tokenized RWA issuance network where token issuers can enforce compliance rules at the token layer, and where investors can easily hold multiple types of assets under one hood to manage them cheaply and quickly. That fits the needs of these assets perfectly from the perspective of institutional investors, as asset issuers often need to know who holds what, and who is allowed to receive transfers.

Today, the XRP Ledger's on-chain RWA footprint is just $235 million. That's far smaller than the sector's leader, Ethereum, which hosts nearly $15 billion in tokenized assets. What could change in 2026 is scaling up of real issuance. Financial businesses like DBS Group and Franklin Templeton are working on trading and lending workflows built around tokenized money market fund units issued on the XRPL. The edge that XRP has here is its compliance tooling, so it could ultimately be viewed as much more attractive for financial institutions than its competitors.

If more financial products migrate to be managed on the chain, the long-term case for holding XRP will strengthen substantially, as everyone who uses the chain as a financial tool needs to hold some of the coin, thereby creating some demand for it. But even if the XRPL doesn't win a large share of the market's growth, the tokenization narrative can be a bullish tailwind in general, as long as it can catch some of the growth.

Alex Carchidi has positions in Ethereum. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Ethereum and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.