21Shares said that while the legal and regulatory foundation for XRP has strengthened further, increased trading and activity on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) does not necessarily translate automatically into higher token demand and rising prices.
Key points
US spot XRP ETFs have recorded net inflows of more than $1.7 billion on a cumulative basis since listing at the end of 2025.
21Shares bases its XRP investment thesis on clearer regulatory guidance, institutional accessibility, measurable utility, and a fixed supply structure.
However, institutions may only need to hold XRP “for a moment” for settlement, so they warn that increased usage for payments may not be transmitted strongly enough into higher value for token holders.
XRP ETF demand flow
21Shares has published a new investment report that defines XRP not as a “price outlook” bet, but as a bet on blockchain-based payment infrastructure. The report came after seven spot XRP ETFs were listed on the U.S. market starting in November 2025, pulling in about $1.3 billion in their first month.
Since then, cumulative net inflows have surpassed $1.7 billion, but the XRP price remains still well below the level of the 2025 peak.
**The lawsuit between Ripple and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) concluded in August 2025, eliminating long-running uncertainty that had made access difficult for regulatory funds, banks, and other institutional investors. Over the past year, the on-chain value settled in XRP payments in XRP’s utility has reached roughly $50 billion, Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin surged from $72 million to about $1.6 billion, and the size of tokenized real-world assets (RWA) also approached $4 billion.
21Shares also emphasized that XRP’s total issued supply is a “fixed supply” structure—already set at 100 billion units at the time of its launch. To date, more than 14 million XRP have been burned as trading fees, and circulating supply has been increasing gradually over time as escrow amounts are periodically released.
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21Shares’ “value test”
The biggest risk identified by 21Shares is that even if XRP ledger usage increases, “sustained demand” for XRP tokens may not necessarily follow. Institutional investors and financial institutions may only need to hold XRP momentarily during the process of transferring value on the network, so even if settlement volumes grow, the economic value returned to long-term holders may be limited.
This “utility-to-value disconnect” is already a major point of debate in the market.
In mid-September, despite increased ETF accessibility for XRP, growth in stablecoins, and higher trading of tokenized assets, XRP traded between $1.35 and $1.45. Ultimately, 21Shares’ assessment is that the investment thesis hinges not on a simple increase in trading volume, but on whether— as institutional settlements grow— XRP can be kept tied to as an “economically essential asset.”
While increased demand via ETFs would clearly provide another buying base, it does not resolve the fundamental question of how much value generated by network activity ultimately accrues to XRP tokens.
XRP has already shown how quickly a gap between institutional demand and price can widen. In August alone, the token’s price surged by nearly 30% from about $1.06 to $1.50, then settled around the $1.35 level, while futures trading volume also jumped to the highest level among the past six months.
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