XRP will end 2025 with one of the most paradoxical profiles in the cryptocurrency market, thanks to record institutional inflows colliding with one of the weakest price charts.
Market capitalization $111.7 billion
24 hour volume $2.15 billion
Best ever $3.84
XRP investment products attracted approximately $70.2 million in net new funding in the last trading week of December, according to CoinShares data. This increased monthly inflows to over $424 million, making it the best-performing cryptocurrency investment product of the month.
In the same month, Bitcoin products recorded $25 million in outflows, while Ethereum funds recorded $241 million in outflows.
But spot tape tells a completely different story.
At the time of writing, XRP is trading near $1.87, solidifying its 15% decline this month and languishing at the bottom of the top 10 crypto asset performance chart, according to CryptoSlate data.
This split between record demand for regulated “wrappers” and depressed spot prices suggests that the market is quietly changing hands, moving from retail momentum traders to model-driven institutional investors.
ETF flow
This divergence has been widening throughout the fourth quarter, but accelerated significantly during the shortened December holiday week.
The category has seen more than $1 billion in net inflows since mid-October, when U.S.-listed spot XRP products began trading, according to product disclosure and exchange data.
This steady demand is in sharp contrast to the choppy and volatile flows seen in older crypto ETPs, where profit-taking and year-end risk aversion were recurring themes.
While Bitcoin ETF holders have been rotating capital to recoup tax losses, buyers of XRP products appear to be carrying out an entirely different mission.
The Canary XRP ETF (XRPC) has emerged as the bellwether of this new trade. The fund has amassed more than $300 million in assets since its inception and set a record for first-day volume for a U.S. ETF in 2025, according to SoSo Value data.
The size of the fund is important. It provides wealth managers and model portfolio providers with a liquid and defensible instrument that fits seamlessly into standard brokerage and custody workflows. This is a prerequisite for adding assets to your customer lineup.
These types of flows are typically driven more by processes than by traders trying to time the market. Advisory platforms, multi-asset funds, and asset management networks tend to move only after products are listed, a track record is established, and spreads are proven to be acceptable.
Once these internal approvals are obtained, allocations are often hard-coded into portfolio models and rebalancing rules.
This mechanical bidding helps explain how XRP ETPs were able to continue absorbing capital even as the token’s price fell and public sentiment worsened.
While individual traders and leveraged traders sold short due to year-end fatigue, buyers on the other side of the trade were meeting strategic quotas rather than chasing a breakout.
Ripple’s extensive infrastructure bet
Meanwhile, some investors are linking the renewed interest in XRP vehicles to a larger, structural bet on Ripple’s corporate strategy.
The company is moving aggressively into traditional financial infrastructure in 2025, announcing landmark deals to acquire prime broker Hidden Road and treasury management company GT Treasury, alongside the rollout of the RLUSD dollar-backed stablecoin.
Once these transactions are fully integrated, Ripple will have a comprehensive footprint spanning payments, custody, prime brokerage, and corporate finance software.
For example, Hidden Road processes trillions of dollars in transactions annually for hundreds of institutional clients, and GTreasury serves more than 1,000 enterprise clients worldwide.
Proponents of the “full stack” theory argue that the move will transform Ripple from a payments company to a vertically integrated provider of digital asset plumbing for banks and hedge funds.
In this framework, XRP’s ETP flows are a proxy for its participation in the infrastructure story. Buyers are not just speculating on tokens. They are exposed, through regulated instruments, to networks that are expected to underpin next-generation collateral and liquidity management.
Thoughts on XRP
However, the mechanical effects of inflows are most evident in “float,” the supply of tokens available for active trading.
When an ETF or ETP issues new shares to meet demand, authorized participants must procure XRP and deliver it to a custodian. As long as these shares are outstanding, the underlying tokens will be kept in cold storage rather than in the exchange’s order book.
This does not permanently eliminate supply, and redemptions can return it to the tradable pool, but it does reduce the amount that can be traded in the short term. On-chain and exchange data suggests that XRP balances held in centralized venues are trending down toward the end of the year, despite increasing fund holdings.
This creates a “spring-loaded” market structure. If discretionary volumes increase in January, or if macro catalysts trigger a broader risk-on movement, new buyers could end up competing for a much thinner layer of readily available supply.
In that scenario, a small increase in demand could cause prices to fluctuate more violently than they did at the beginning of the year, when free float was plentiful.
At the same time, sentiment around XRP in public forums has deteriorated to levels rarely seen outside of bear markets.
According to a report by analytics firm Santiment, negative comments on the token have significantly outnumbered positive mentions in recent weeks, reflecting retailers’ frustration with the poor performance of newer, more volatile tokens.
In past market cycles, such extreme sentiment has sometimes preceded sharp contrarian pullbacks, but the relationship is far from reliable.
Taken together, we can see that the market is in a period of transition rather than consensus.
The flowsheet appears to be constructive. New money, new wrappers, an increasing share of supply held by funds that rebalance on calendars rather than tweets. However, the price chart looks hurt and the social atmosphere is highly skeptical.
For XRP heading into 2026, the widening gap between how XRP trades and where the funds are located could be more important than one-week performance.
