The author argues XRP isn't worth buying, even if its price rises over five years, because holders capture little of the value generated by network activity. Ripple markets the XRP Ledger as an institutional finance hub and home for tokenized real-world assets, which could increase transactions and the amount of XRP burned through fees. However, 21Shares data shows the network earned just $1.2 million in fees on $159.9 billion settled in the first half of 2026, against an $82.4 billion market cap, and tokenized assets pay similarly tiny fees. Two proposed features, a native lending protocol and native staking, could give holders a yield but would not directly tie returns to network growth. The author says they cannot see investing until a mechanism reliably links XRP's utilization to holder returns.
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Related tickers and likely impact
XRP/USDT
• NeutralXRP
Relevance: low
| Market | Crypto |
|---|---|
| Exchange | Binance |
| Sector | Layer 1 |
| Market cap | $81.8B |
| Close on 10/20/2026 | 1.33580 |
| Change that session | +2.43% |
Impact is scored by AI from the headline and may be wrong. It is not investment advice.
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