XRP Ledger Overtakes Ethereum in Tokenized Assets as Ripple Splits Its Future From the Token

XRP Ledger draws $1.9B in tokenized asset inflows, surpassing Ethereum; Ripple targets $1B revenue from fintech services, not XRP; regulatory bill and AI kit fuel momentum.

The XRP Ledger has stolen a march on Ethereum in the race to tokenize real-world assets, drawing $1.9 billion in net inflows since mid-March — excluding stablecoins — and pushing the total value of tokenized assets on the network to roughly $4.2 billion. Ethereum, the long-standing leader in the space, managed only $1.6 billion over the same stretch. Low transaction costs have fueled the shift, and a new software update, version 3.2.0, cuts server memory requirements by as much as 40%, making the ledger more hospitable to high-frequency institutional settlements.

Yet even as the blockchain flexes its infrastructure muscle, Ripple, the company most associated with XRP, is deliberately uncoupling its own financial destiny from the token. CEO Brad Garlinghouse has set a revenue target of $1 billion by the end of 2026, but that ambition rests purely on services such as cross-border payments, stablecoins, and crypto custody — not on Ripple’s massive XRP holdings. The message is clear: Ripple wants to be seen as a conventional fintech infrastructure provider, not a proxy for a volatile digital asset.

The gap between network usage and market price is beginning to narrow, but slowly. XRP changed hands near $1.24 on Wednesday, up about 5% on the day but still down roughly 34% year to date. The token remains a long way from its 52-week peak of $3.65. Institutional investors, however, have been piling in through regulated products: spot XRP ETFs absorbed $1.4 billion through mid-June, marking six consecutive weeks of positive inflows. The in-house stablecoin RLUSD, which supports trading on the ledger, recently crossed a market capitalization of $1.3 billion.

Political momentum could provide another catalyst. The CLARITY Act, a bill that would enshrine XRP as a digital commodity under federal law, cleared the Senate Banking Committee in early June and now awaits a full Senate vote. Conservative pension funds and insurers have been demanding exactly this kind of legal certainty before expanding their on-chain exposure. A positive vote would replace years of regulatory ambiguity with a clear statutory framework.

Ripple is also betting on technology to drive future demand. In June, the company released a developer kit designed for artificial intelligence applications on the XRP Ledger, enabling automated payments either in XRP or RLUSD with settlement times of three to five seconds. Whether those tools will generate meaningful revenue remains an open question — management has declined to provide projections — but they underscore the company’s push to embed itself in the broader digital infrastructure.

For investors, the decoupling is a double-edged sword. Ripple’s move to separate its revenue story from XRP’s price action brings welcome clarity, but it also means that a strong operational performance does not guarantee rising demand for the token. As long as Ripple’s infrastructure solutions do not require XRP to function, the two trajectories will remain distinct — no matter how many real-world assets migrate onto the ledger.