XRP Keeps Sliding Despite Ripple's Global Growth: Time to Buy, Sell, or Hold?

Since launching in 2012, Ripple has become one of the most successful blockchain companies. Its valuation was pegged at $50 billion during an employee share buyback in March 2026, larger than Coinbase's market cap at the time of this writing (Sept. 11). Ripple is a private company, so it's not a perfect comparison, but it still gives an idea of how well it has done and why there's so much interest in buying Ripple stock.

Ripple is also the largest holder and main corporate backer of XRP (CRYPTO: XRP). Interestingly, this cryptocurrency hasn't shared in Ripple's success. While Ripple provides a valuable product to financial institutions, the case for XRP is muddier.

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Banks are adopting Ripple, but not XRP

If you're unfamiliar with Ripple, it's a fintech company that provides blockchain and crypto solutions to businesses. Its main product is the Ripple payments network, which uses the XRP Ledger (XRPL), a blockchain network, to send cross-border payments in three to five seconds for just a fraction of $0.01 in fees.

XRP is the native token on the XRPL, meaning it's used for paying transaction fees there. Ripple also designed XRP to serve as on-demand liquidity and as a bridge currency. Financial institutions can use XRP to send international payments without needing other currencies.

But banks can and do use Ripple's payments network without using XRP. Although there's no confirmed number of banks currently using the network, Ripple announced that it had surpassed 300 customers in 2019. Only a handful, including SBI Remit and Travelex Bank, are confirmed to use XRP.

Other use cases for XRP

XRP's role on Ripple's payments network isn't all it does. The XRPL also provides a platform for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications and the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs), such as stocks and bonds.

While both have emerged as legitimate uses for blockchain technology, the XRPL isn't a big player in either one. The total value locked (TVL) into DeFi protocols on the XRPL is less than $50 million, according to DefiLlama. It's behind 40 other blockchains in that regard. Ethereum dominates with about $50 billion in TVL, and Solana is second with about $6 billion.

The XRPL does better with RWAs. It ranks 10th with about $460 million in distributed RWAs, but that's still well behind the leading blockchains, including Ethereum, which has $17 billion in total value. It's hard to see the XRPL gaining significant market share in DeFi or RWAs, especially given its primary purpose as a payments coin.

Is XRP a buy, sell, or hold?

I see XRP as a hold right now. It doesn't seem to have made much progress lately in its role as a cross-border payments solution, and if you want to invest in cryptocurrencies tied to DeFi or RWAs, better options are available, including Ethereum and Solana.

XRP could certainly go on another run, as it has before, but it's already one of the five largest cryptocurrencies by market cap, at $85 billion. Given how risky XRP is, I'd only invest if I saw it as a possible 10-bagger. That would make it worth $850 billion, a mark only Bitcoin has reached, and I believe that's an unrealistic forecast for XRP.

Lyle Daly has positions in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP. The Motley Fool recommends Coinbase Global. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.