XRP’s Market Performance Diverges from Ecosystem Progress

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While the XRP ecosystem achieves significant technological and regulatory milestones, its native token continues to face downward price pressure. This disconnect highlights a core challenge: many of Ripple's expanding services do not inherently require the use of XRP for settlement.

In a key development for its regional operations, Ripple received a full Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license from Luxembourg's CSSF (Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier) this Monday. The regulator converted the company's previous provisional approval into a complete authorization. This permits Ripple to scale its payment and digital asset services across all European Union member states.

The firm now holds over 75 licenses globally, positioning it as one of the most heavily regulated entities in the cryptocurrency sector. The full EMI license is expected to accelerate the adoption of Ripple Payments, its cross-border payment solution tailored for banks and financial technology companies.

A New Feature for Institutional Adoption

Separately, the XRP Ledger activated a major new feature called "Permissioned Domains" on February 4th. Validators approved the measure with more than 91% support. This upgrade, known as the XLS-80 amendment, enables the creation of controlled, credential-based access areas within the public ledger.

The functionality allows institutions to establish rule-bound environments where participation is restricted to accounts with specific credentials. This eliminates the need to build a separate, private blockchain. Operators of a domain set the rules, and accounts possessing the matching credentials are automatically granted membership.

Built upon the XLS-70 Credentials framework, this innovation aims to bridge the regulatory compliance needs of traditional finance with the infrastructure of a public blockchain. It is designed to serve as a foundation for future regulated applications, including permissioned decentralized exchanges (DEXs).

RLUSD Stablecoin Gains Momentum

Ripple's stablecoin, RLUSD, is experiencing rapid growth. In just the 48-hour period leading up to February 4th, an additional $109 million was minted. Its total circulation now stands at $1.49 billion. Trading volume for RLUSD hit $259.5 million in a single day, surpassing that of PayPal's PYUSD.

This expansion follows Ripple's strategic moves in the treasury management space. After acquiring GTreasury for $1 billion in October 2025, the company launched "Ripple Treasury" last week, a solution that integrates RLUSD for cross-border settlements.

The Core Disconnect and Market Reaction

These advancements underscore a structural issue for XRP: Ripple's payment services and treasury solutions can operate effectively without utilizing XRP as the settlement asset. The new Permissioned Domains feature does not directly alter the token's supply or fee mechanics. Any potential benefit for XRP would be indirect, reliant on increased on-chain activity from regulated institutions building on the XRPL, which would use XRP to pay transaction fees.

The token's market capitalization fluctuates between approximately $92 billion and $97 billion, with 60.85 billion XRP in circulation out of a maximum supply of 100 billion. Over the past seven days, XRP has declined between 16% and 17% in value, trading near its 52-week low.

Whether these technological strides and regulatory wins will ultimately translate into sustained on-chain demand for XRP remains to be seen. For now, the market is evidently not rewarding these milestones.