XRP (XRP 0.91%) jumped sky-high at the end of 2024, gaining a heart-stopping 294% across November and December. XRP enthusiasts and investors expected smooth sailing after the new Trump administration ended that long-running regulatory lawsuit.
As of Dec. 16, 2025, those bullish projections haven't really worked out. XRP is down 8% year to date, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC +0.46%) stock market index gained 15%. The core token of the RippleNet international payment system has also plunged 47% from July's short-lived all-time peak.
CRYPTO: XRP
Key Data Points
What XRP bulls expected
A 47% drop sounds like a fire sale, but there's more to the XRP story than a volatile price chart.
XRP's big jump wasn't inspired by massive adoption of RippleNet payments. It was more of a speculative boom as holders expected several catalysts to play out quickly.
In a perfect world, XRP would have been included in the new government's cryptocurrency reserve holdings, igniting a global surge in trading and RippleNet payment activity.
Financial institutions would then build their own multibillion-dollar XRP portfolios, perhaps wrapped in the familiar format of exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Together, these moves should have sparked another round of game-changing XRP price gains.
Image source: Getty Images.
Here's the red flag
XRP isn't worthless, but there's a huge red flag for this token. Where's the actual business?
When I buy a stock, I want to see earnings, customers, growth. In cryptocurrencies, I must settle for real-world use cases and increasing activity in whatever the coin or token is supposed to do. With XRP, I see a lot of potential and not much proof.
Some of the expected catalysts did play out. The lawsuit was settled, and XRP-based ETFs like the Canary XRP ETF (XRPC 0.84%) were approved a month ago.
But RippleNet isn't managing more payments or larger transactions than it did two years ago -- and it's just a trickle of daily transactions. That $116 billion (with a B) market cap is built on big dreams and about $1 million (with an M) in annual transaction fees.
Sorry, but that's too rich for my blood.
