Foreign media commentary suggests that Ripple secured multiple institutional partnerships in 2026, but these advancements have not been reflected in XRP’s price. The article notes that the market is increasingly distinguishing between Ripple as a company, the infrastructure value of the XRP Ledger, and the demand for the XRP token itself.
Institutional partnerships do not necessarily bring buying demand.
The article mentions that Ripple has advanced partnerships this year with institutions such as Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, and Mastercard, covering payments, custody, and tokenized asset settlement. Some projects operate on the XRP Ledger, but the settlement assets are not XRP; instead, they are RLUSD or other supporting infrastructure.
Using the U.S. Treasury tokenization pilot involving JPMorgan, Mastercard, and Ondo Finance as an example, although trades occur on the XRP Ledger, settlement is conducted using RLUSD. XRP primarily serves the role of network transaction fees, with limited actual demand.
RLUSD replaces the bridging role
The article argues that XRP's core narrative in the past was as a "bridge currency" for cross-border payments. If financial institutions needed to purchase XRP first to facilitate on-chain transfers between different fiat currencies, network growth should have generated sustained demand.
But this will not be the case in 2026. As RLUSD grows in scale, institutions will increasingly prefer to use more price-stable USD stablecoins for settlement. For finance departments and banks, stablecoins are better suited than volatile XRP for real-world transaction scenarios.
The text also notes that a significant portion of RLUSD's circulating supply remains on the Ethereum network rather than the XRP Ledger, which undermines the claim that RLUSD growth would naturally boost XRP.
ETF funds have not changed their weak trend
In addition to institutional partnerships, the spot XRP ETF was also seen as another important catalyst. The article states that after the U.S. spot XRP ETF launched at the end of 2025, it initially attracted institutional interest and experienced rapid cumulative inflows.
However, based on subsequent performance, the assets under management for these products still represent only a small portion of XRP’s total market capitalization, and daily capital flows remain inconsistent. Even after strong inflows, the market has experienced outflows, failing to sustainably alter price trends.
The article notes that XRP has declined more than 40% since its January high. The author argues that while Ripple's enterprise business can continue to expand, this does not necessarily mean XRP will benefit in tandem.