Four spot XRP exchange-traded funds in the US have accumulated $941.7 million in assets since their November launch, signaling strong investor interest. However, Ripple's On-Demand Liquidity processed $15 billion in cross-border payments in 2024, underscoring the cryptocurrency's utility beyond price speculation. This dual narrative highlights both speculative enthusiasm and practical adoption in global finance.
The launch of four XRP spot ETFs in November marked a significant milestone for the cryptocurrency in regulated markets. As of December 18, Grayscale's GXRP holds $148.1 million, Canary Capital's XRPC manages $373.6 million, Franklin Templeton's XRPZ accounts for $189 million, and Bitwise's XRP ETF stands at $215.6 million, totaling $941.7 million. This represents growth from an initial $336 million, capturing excitement in a short period.
Yet, the article emphasizes that true adoption lies in Ripple's infrastructure. RippleNet connects over 300 financial institutions across more than 55 countries, with about 40% utilizing XRP via On-Demand Liquidity (ODL). In 2024, ODL facilitated $15 billion in cross-border payments, a 32% increase year-over-year, with Asia-Pacific contributing 56% of the volume. It now covers over 70 corridor pairs, encompassing an estimated 80% of major global remittance corridors. Research from DAS indicates $1.3 billion in ODL volume for the second quarter of 2025 alone. Overall, RippleNet processes more than $15 billion in monthly cross-border transactions in 2025, though not all involve XRP.
On the XRP Ledger (XRPL), activity remains robust. In the third quarter of 2025, XRPL processed about 1.8 million transactions daily, a 9% rise from the prior quarter, with payments comprising 55.7% of activity at around 989,600 per day. Active sender addresses averaged 25,300 daily, and 447,200 new addresses were created, bringing the total to 6.9 million. Weekly payment counts surged 430% compared to 2023. The tokenized real-world assets (RWA) market cap on XRPL reached $347 million by quarter's end, up 193% quarter-over-quarter, driven by US Treasury funds, commercial paper, and real estate tokens.
Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin, launched in December 2024 on XRPL and Ethereum, has a total supply of $1.3 billion as of December 19, with $293 million on XRPL—up 41% in the past 30 days. Pilots are underway on layer-2 networks like Optimism and Base using Wormhole's NTT standard.
Liquidity metrics reinforce XRP's standing: Kaiko ranks it tied with Ethereum at an AA score of 95/100, with average daily trading volume at $1.73 billion in early 2025, up 22% year-over-year. On XRPL's decentralized exchanges, central limit order book volume averaged $7.9 million daily, with 1 million trades and 7,800 traders, plus $1.7 million in automated market maker volume.
Against global cross-border payments of $130 trillion to $150 trillion annually, ODL's scale remains modest but growing, positioning XRP for potential durable demand if volumes and on-chain metrics continue upward trajectories independent of ETF flows.
