Ripple’s RLUSD Surpasses Ethereum Holdings, but XRP Token Stalls Below $1.10 Amid Institutional Shifts

RLUSD on XRP Ledger hits $810M, overtaking Ethereum; XRP price drops 42% YTD amid Goldman Sachs exit, despite surging network activity.

Ripple’s native stablecoin has crossed a symbolic threshold — more RLUSD tokens now sit on the XRP Ledger than on Ethereum — yet the company’s own token continues to trade as though nothing has changed. The disconnect between on-chain fundamentals and market price has rarely been starker.

On the XRP Ledger, RLUSD tokens now represent $810 million in value, edging past Ethereum’s $756 million. Just one month ago, Ethereum led by more than $300 million. The reversal reflects a deliberate migration of liquidity providers and exchanges, who are increasingly routing stablecoin activity onto Ripple’s own blockchain. That shift has pushed the settlement volume processed by RLUSD on the XRP Ledger to $2.5 billion.

The network itself is busier too. Between mid and late June, daily active addresses surged 72%, from 23,000 to nearly 39,500. At the same time, the speculative froth has cooled: leveraged futures positions have fallen sharply, a development analysts view as healthy for reducing volatility.

Yet for all this on-chain momentum, XRP’s price remains stuck at $1.09. The token has lost 42% since the start of the year and 51% over the past twelve months. It now trades more than 70% below its 52-week high of $3.65, set in July 2025.

Institutional flows tell a mixed story. Seven XRP spot ETFs now operate in the US, collectively managing roughly $1 billion in assets and locking away almost 971 million XRP tokens in custody. Weekly inflows into these funds recently ran at about $60 million, bringing cumulative inflows since launch to $1.4 billion. But that steady stream of ETF money has not been enough to counteract a major vote of no confidence from one Wall Street heavyweight.

Goldman Sachs has completely exited its position in XRP ETFs. At the end of 2025, the bank held stakes worth around $154 million. By the end of the first quarter of 2026, those holdings had been liquidated entirely. Analysts suspect the bank used the position primarily to facilitate client orders rather than as a long-term bet. Goldman rotated the proceeds into crypto-related equities such as Coinbase and Galaxy Digital instead.

Meanwhile, Ripple has joined the Open USD Consortium, a project backed by Visa, Mastercard, and BlackRock. The initiative plans to launch a dollar-pegged stablecoin on blockchains like Solana and Polygon in 2026. Notably, the XRP Ledger is not yet included in the rollout. Ripple President Monica Long described the move as part of a broader vision for cross-network payments, and the company continues to push its own RLUSD stablecoin in parallel.

The practical benefits for the XRP token remain indirect. A separate research report found that nearly $900 million of RLUSD’s settlement volume came from direct trading against XRP, demonstrating that the token does benefit from stablecoin activity on its native chain. Still, the price has not responded.

The fundamental picture is increasingly split. Ripple’s infrastructure is gaining real adoption — from stablecoin migration to rising user counts. But that traction has yet to translate into sustained demand for XRP itself. As long as major institutions prefer to express their crypto exposure through equities rather than the token, the price will likely remain disconnected from the network’s progress.