XRP: The Coin That Won Its Legal Battle — So Why Has the Price Gone Nowhere?

XRP is a digital asset issued by Ripple Labs, an American fintech company co-founded in 2012 by Chris Larsen and Jed McCaleb. It operates on its own blockchain, the XRP Ledger, and was designed from the outset with a specific purpose: to facilitate cross-border payments and provide liquidity between currencies. As of May 2026, XRP's market capitalisation stands at roughly $85.4bn, making it the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by that measure. Its following in South Korea is particularly striking — the Upbit exchange alone holds around 6bn XRP tokens, the largest concentration of the asset at any single exchange in the world.

Origins

Ripple's conceptual roots predate Bitcoin. In 2004, Ryan Fugger proposed a payment network called RipplePay, built on trust relationships between individuals rather than a central authority. In 2012, Larsen and McCaleb took that idea further, founding a company called OpenCoin and issuing XRP. The company was subsequently renamed Ripple Labs. A fateful structural decision was made at this point: all 100bn XRP tokens were created at once, with Ripple Labs retaining a substantial portion. Unlike Bitcoin, where coins enter circulation gradually through mining, XRP's entire supply existed from day one — a design choice that would generate controversy for years.

McCaleb departed the following year. He then spent several years steadily selling his XRP holdings into the open market. This persistent supply overhang — informally known in the market as the "Jed dump" — acted as a chronic drag on the price. His sell-off was not completed until 2022.

During the 2017–18 bull run, XRP reached an all-time high of $3.84, briefly threatening to displace Ethereum as the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation. In South Korea, the name "Ripple" became so synonymous with the token itself that many retail investors barely distinguished between the company and the coin. But the 2018 crash pulled XRP back below $1, and in December 2020 came the event that would define the following five years.

What Does It Actually Do?

XRP functions primarily as a bridge currency. In cross-border transactions, it serves as an intermediary between two different currencies: a payment from Korean won to Mexican pesos, for example, can be routed through XRP — won to XRP to pesos — faster and more cheaply than a conventional bank transfer. Ripple Labs operates this service through a network called RippleNet, which counts more than 300 financial institutions among its partners. As of 2026, it supports payment services in more than 60 markets, operates 51 real-time payment rails, and has processed a cumulative total exceeding $100bn in transactions.

In December 2024, Ripple Labs also launched RLUSD, a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. The intention is to complement XRP's price volatility and bind the ecosystem more tightly to real-world commerce.

The SEC Battle and Its Aftermath

The defining episode in XRP's history is its five-year legal confrontation with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In December 2020, the SEC sued Ripple Labs along with chief executive Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen, alleging that the company had raised $1.3bn through the unregistered sale of securities. On the day the lawsuit was announced, XRP lost more than half its value in a single session. Coinbase and other major American exchanges promptly suspended trading in the token.

In July 2023, Judge Analisa Torres of the Southern District of New York issued a partial ruling in Ripple's favour. The critical finding was that XRP sold to retail investors on exchanges did not constitute a security — a landmark conclusion for the broader crypto industry. XRP surged 75% on the day. The court did, however, find that Ripple Labs had violated securities law in its direct sales to institutional investors, imposing a fine of $125m.

Both sides appealed. In August 2025, they agreed to drop those appeals, bringing the case to a final close. Ripple Labs ultimately paid only $50m of the fine, with the remainder refunded. Immediately after the settlement, XRP broke through $3 for the first time in seven years.

Then something puzzling happened. Three significant catalysts arrived in quick succession: the lawsuit concluded, a spot XRP exchange-traded fund was launched in the United States, and RLUSD went live. Yet the price failed to sustain its gains. Within a fortnight of the legal settlement, XRP had dropped 25%. By October 2025 it had fallen as low as $1.58. The spot ETF attracted inflows for 24 consecutive days after its launch, but ultimately disappointed expectations.

The explanations offered by analysts pull in different directions. Some argue that the removal of regulatory risk had already been priced in well before the formal resolution. Others point to a more structural problem: participation in RippleNet does not automatically mean using XRP. A meaningful share of the network's financial institution partners use only Ripple's messaging and settlement infrastructure, not XRP itself as a bridge currency.

Assessment

XRP has achieved things most cryptocurrencies have not. It fought the American regulatory establishment in court for five years and emerged with its status as a non-security largely intact. It has built genuine commercial infrastructure: 300-plus financial institution partnerships, payment rails across more than 60 markets, and a dollar-backed stablecoin. In terms of technical maturity and real-world deployment, it stands apart from the vast majority of tokens. Among South Korean retail investors — who account for roughly 15% of global XRP trading volume on any given day — it remains by far the most embedded cryptocurrency in everyday financial life.

Yet the market's muted response to what should have been transformative good news deserves a sober reading. The fundamental challenge is that actual demand for XRP as a payment instrument is not growing as quickly as the network's headline partner count might suggest. The structural criticism — that Ripple Labs, as a centralised company, holds an enormous quantity of XRP and can sell it at will — has not gone away.

Investment risk: ★★★☆☆ (Moderate) Technical maturity: ★★★★☆ (Strong) Ecosystem scalability: ★★★★☆ (Strong) Overall interest: ★★★★☆ (High)