XRP's Price Stagnation: A Paradox in a Growing Crypto Market
Ripple's XRP token is an outlier in the cryptocurrency market. Despite its parent company Ripple building a regulated financial business, including a conditional U.S. national trust bank charter and a dollar stablecoin, the price of XRP has not followed Bitcoin or Ethereum up.
Bitcoin and Ethereum have both had significant price increases over the years, with Bitcoin reaching $126,000 last October and Ethereum reaching $4,950 in August 2025. However, XRP's all-time high is still the $3.84 it hit on January 4, 2018, and it currently trades at $1.07.
One reason for this disparity is that there are now far more XRP tokens circulating than there were in 2018, with about 63 billion coins available today compared to around 34 billion at the time of its peak price. This increasing supply has put downward pressure on the price of XRP.
Ripple's growth and success do not directly translate to an increase in the price of XRP. While Ripple earns fees in dollars, the company does not create demand for XRP. Instead, RLUSD, a dollar stablecoin launched by Ripple in December 2024, is used to settle trades and hold its value at a dollar.