Why Ripple’s Growing Business Ventures and Partnerships Are Not Boosting XRP
Despite a wave of high-profile partnerships and a surge in institutional adoption, the price of XRP remains disconnected from Ripple’s success.
Why Ripple’s Growing Business Ventures and Partnerships Are Not Boosting XRP
Despite a wave of high-profile partnerships and a surge in institutional adoption, the price of XRP remains disconnected from Ripple's success.
Understanding the Disconnect in Ripple Partnerships
Buying XRP does not give investors shares in Ripple, even though the company's expanding list of new ventures and financial partners often makes it easy to assume their fortunes should move in tandem. Ripple can earn substantial revenue from these relationships without passing a single dollar to token holders, who hold no legal claim on the company's profits. According to Cryptoslate, XRP did experience a minor lift during a recent round of announcements, climbing from $1.29 on October 25 to $1.32 on October 28, marking a modest gain of about 2.3%.
However, that slight increase still left the token roughly 11% below its September close, despite another week of recognizable names signing up for Ripple’s services. Over the same September-to-October window, Bitcoin dropped roughly 2.7%, while Ethereum fell approximately 12.2%, indicating that XRP was not unusually weak compared to other major digital assets. Observers note that price action fails to capture what traders truly think about these announcements, which instead highlight the tools customers plan to utilize in the coming months.
Institutional Adoption and the Role of RLUSD
While some recent developments give institutions better access to XRP, others focus heavily on RLUSD, a dollar-backed asset that Ripple sells alongside its native token. Ripple builds financial software and services, whereas XRP functions as the native cryptocurrency of the XRP Ledger, or XRPL. While XRP pays transaction costs on the network and acts as an intermediary between different assets, customers can utilize various Ripple services without ever choosing XRP as the asset they send.
Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin is designed to maintain a stable value of one US dollar through reserves consisting of short-term US government securities and cash. When businesses move RLUSD, they opt for a dollar-denominated asset rather than taking on the price volatility associated with holding XRP. Furthermore, institutions can pay Ripple for cash-management software or digital asset custody without becoming direct investors in XRP. Ripple's projected $900 million annualized revenue target reflects broad growth across all of its products, including recently acquired businesses.
Expanding Custody and Brokerage Integration
On October 26, Ripple announced that it received final approval for a national trust bank charter, permitting activities such as managing RLUSD-related reserves and providing digital-asset custody. This development expands institutional offerings without requiring customers to purchase XRP. Shortly after, BNY announced support for XRP and RLUSD on its digital asset custody platform, enabling eligible institutional clients to hold and transfer them through an established provider.
Additional infrastructure providers are also expanding their integration of Ripple's ecosystem. Robinhood agreed to use RLUSD on the XRPL for institutional settlement and integrate Ripple Treasury into its own cash management operations. Meanwhile, Coinbase added RLUSD across both retail and institutional platforms, allowing transfers across multiple blockchains without triggering transactions on the XRP Ledger. DriveWealth is similarly integrating RLUSD on the XRPL for settlement across Europe with planned US expansion.
DeFi Collateral and Market Implications
Beyond institutional custody, the XRP Ledger maintains notable decentralized finance activity. According to Cryptoslate, Maple locked approximately $280 million in XRP collateral backing loans funded from Ethereum pools. Maple reported roughly 225 million XRP across its syrupUSDC and syrupUSDT products, with three displayed XRP-backed positions carrying about $151.8 million in nominal stablecoin principal and maturities slated for December and January.
Borrowing against XRP allows existing holders to access liquidity while maintaining exposure to the token, though upcoming maturities introduce potential risks depending on whether positions are renewed, repaid, or subjected to liquidations following margin calls. As developers on the XRP Ledger continue to propose technical rules for restricted tokens, the ecosystem balances expanding institutional utility with complex token-holding demands.
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