XRP's Great Divergence: Network Activity Surges as Price Sinks to Multi-Year Lows

Ripple shifts $200M RLUSD to XRPL, whales accumulate 71M XRP, and regulatory wins boost outlook despite XRP price near 63% below highs.

The XRP Ledger is quietly building a formidable institutional infrastructure, even as the token's price wallows near levels not seen in years. On May 28, Ripple's stablecoin RLUSD breached a market capitalisation of $1.7 billion, while the company executed a deliberate liquidity manoeuvre that shifted over $200 million in RLUSD onto the XRP Ledger — all within 48 hours. The move saw $100 million in RLUSD tokens burned on Ethereum, boosting native RLUSD supply on the XRPL to more than $690 million and pushing the network's total stablecoin base past $1.1 billion. Market observers see this as a clear signal that Ripple is positioning the ledger as a settlement layer for banks and payment providers, where every transaction fee is paid in XRP itself.

That institutional push is gaining concrete validation. A report published on May 27 confirmed successful pilot projects with Mastercard and J.P. Morgan, where RLUSD was used for tokenised treasury settlements. Crypto custodian Copper integrated the stablecoin into its platform during the week of May 22–23, allowing hedge funds and asset managers to hold RLUSD within existing compliance frameworks for cross-border payments. Yet none of this activity is reflected in the token's price. XRP trades at $1.30–$1.31, roughly 63% below its 52-week high of $3.56 and well under its 200-day moving average. The 30-day MVRV ratio — a gauge of whether holders are in profit or loss — hit its lowest level since December 2020, according to Santiment. Short-term holders are sitting on average unrealised losses of about 55%.

Historically, such extreme readings have marked the bottom of consolidation phases, and large investors appear to be betting on a turnaround. In the past week, whale wallets accumulated roughly 71 million XRP tokens even as broader retail sentiment remained cautious. The price inertia, however, persists. Bitcoin's broader demand vacuum and geopolitical jitters — including US military strikes against Iranian drones in the Strait of Hormuz — have kept risk appetite tepid across crypto markets. XRP ETFs provided a rare bright spot: in the week to May 15, they recorded $60.5 million in net inflows, the highest of the year. Analyst James Butterfill called it a "remarkable acceleration", linking the surge to progress on the CLARITY Act in the US Senate.

Regulatory tailwinds are strengthening. Reports from May 28 indicate the SEC has agreed to drop its appeal in the long-running Ripple lawsuit, settling for a $50 million civil penalty instead of the $125 million originally sought. Separately, the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act is advancing through the Senate, a bill that could codify XRP's role as a bridge currency in cross-border payments. Standard Chartered has held to a $8 price target for XRP in 2026 — contingent on that legislation passing.

On the protocol level, the XRP Ledger is also evolving. A proposal called "AMM Swappable Curves" aims to overhaul the network's automated market maker by introducing three new curve types: Constant Product, Concentrated Liquidity, and StableSwap. If implemented, liquidity providers could choose how their pools price assets, sharply improving capital efficiency — especially for stablecoin pairs. The upgrade, however, depends on a governance process that could take months. More than $3 billion in tokenised real-world assets already sit on the XRPL, including a Ripple-J.P. Morgan pilot, and Ripple filed two trademark applications for decentralised exchange and prime brokerage services in May.

The tension is now plain: Ripple is building a financial back-end that banks and institutions are already using, but the XRP token has yet to see any of that demand flow into its price. Whether the disconnect resolves in a breakout — or simply extends the wait for an external catalyst like the CLARITY Act — remains the defining question for the asset.