Explaining why ripple is going down despite corporate adoption

Market participants frequently question why ripple is going down even as Ripple signs agreements with prominent financial institutions. Although XRP gained approximately 2.3 percent from $1.29 on Oct. 25 to $1.32 on Oct. 28, it remained roughly 11 percent below its September close. Over that same September-to-October window, broader digital asset markets faced weakness, with Bitcoin falling 2.7 percent and Ethereum shedding about 12.2 percent.

A fundamental reason for this divergence is that purchasing XRP does not grant equity or shares in Ripple. The company develops and markets financial software, while XRP functions as the native cryptocurrency of the XRP Ledger (XRPL). Ripple can capture substantial revenue through institutional software relationships without delivering earnings to token holders, who possess no legal claim over corporate profits.

XRP holders have no legal claim on Ripple's corporate profits or enterprise software earnings.

Understanding why ripple is going down

Recent commercial announcements detail what institutional clients actually use. Ripple projects an annualized revenue pace of $900 million across all businesses by year-end. On Oct. 26, the firm secured approval for a national trust bank charter to manage reserves and provide custody. BNY announced on Oct. 27 that it supports both XRP and RLUSD custody. However, these corporate offerings do not mandate buying or holding XRP.

Many recent agreements prioritize RLUSD, Ripple's dollar-pegged stablecoin backed by cash and short-term government debt. Robinhood plans to deploy RLUSD on XRPL for institutional settlement and incorporate Ripple Treasury into cash management. DriveWealth is adopting RLUSD on XRPL for European settlements, while C2FO's Instant Pay will settle payments in the stablecoin. Additionally, Coinbase added RLUSD across platforms on Oct. 28 with multi-chain transfers, enabling users to move the asset without initiating a transaction on XRPL.

Furthermore, XRPL's fee structure limits how much token demand is generated by high payment activity. The network's minimum fee is 10 drops (0.00001 XRP), meaning one million transactions burn just 10 XRP. Fees are destroyed rather than given to Ripple or distributed to holders. While accounts must reserve 1 XRP plus 0.2 XRP per secondary record, these figures do not scale with transfer values. In remittance systems like SBI Remit, XRP acts as a temporary liquidity bridge where tokens are obtained on demand and recycled immediately, allowing high transaction volumes without long-term token holding.

Why it matters

These developments underline that corporate blockchain adoption does not inherently drive capital appreciation for the underlying digital token. Because financial entities can use Ripple's custody, treasury tools, and RLUSD without buying large amounts of XRP, enterprise commercial success remains detached from secondary market token valuation.