Is XRP Still Worth Buying at Today's Price?

XRP is trading at $1.37, down about 62% from its July 2025 peak near $3.65, and the article argues that network growth at RippleNet does not translate cleanly into XRP holder returns. Only about 40% of RippleNet institutions reportedly use XRP for settlement, while RLUSD stablecoin payments may reduce the need for XRP in transfers. Despite roughly $1.4 billion in ETF inflows since November 2025 and Ripple’s 40 billion XRP holdings, the piece concludes there is no urgent sell case but also little evidence of a near-term catalyst to justify fresh buying.

Analysis

The investable distinction here is between network monetization and token monetization. Ripple can keep expanding institutional usage while XRP remains a transient plumbing asset; that creates a structural asymmetry where the company captures adoption optionality but holders of the coin may only get a partial pass-through via sentiment and flows. In other words, the market is likely pricing a “payments winner” while the cash-flow-like benefits accrue to Ripple’s ecosystem, not necessarily to the token itself.

The real second-order dynamic is substitution. As long as RLUSD is operationally acceptable, every bank that chooses a stable unit of account over a volatile bridge asset reduces the marginal utility of XRP as a settlement medium. That matters because the less time XRP must sit on balance sheets, the more its usage resembles throughput consumption rather than durable demand — a design that supports transaction efficiency but not asset scarcity.

Near term, the biggest support to XRP is not fundamentals but reflexive flow: ETF inflows, retail cohesion, and Ripple’s incentive to manage perception around the token. That can sustain price over weeks to months, but it is not the same as a self-reinforcing fundamental bid. The key risk is that once the market accepts RippleNet growth as separable from XRP scarcity, multiple compression can happen fast even if headline adoption continues improving.

The contrarian view is that the downside may be more limited than token critics expect because the asset already has a credible institutional narrative and a committed ownership base. But that makes XRP more of a sentiment/liquidity trade than a fundamental compounding vehicle; the edge is in exploiting flow and narrative windows, not underwriting long-duration value creation.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Avoid initiating new long XRP spot here; treat existing exposure as a tactical hold only. Risk/reward is poor for fresh capital because upside depends on narrative extension, while downside can reprice quickly if ETF flows slow over the next 1-3 months.
• If looking to express a relative view, pair long a payments/fintech beneficiary with short XRP on a 2-4 month horizon. The cleaner thesis is that enterprise adoption can accrue to infrastructure names while token value lags; use a market-neutral structure to isolate the dispersion.
• Sell downside puts or run a limited-risk call spread only if you want to harvest volatility from sentiment, not direction. Favor 1-2 month expiries around event windows tied to partnership, ETF, or regulatory headlines; avoid outright call buying given weak fundamental torque.
• For crypto exposure, rotate capital toward assets with stronger network-capture economics than XRP. The trade is to own tokens or equities where adoption directly improves holder economics, rather than assets where adoption can be intermediated away.
• Set a tactical exit trigger: if ETF inflows decelerate materially for 2 consecutive weeks or RLUSD adoption accelerates relative to XRP settlement usage, reduce exposure aggressively. Those are the two signals that the market is accepting the substitution thesis.