XRP's $15B Payment Layer: Why the Plumbing Beats ETF Hype

ETF frenzy vs. the plumbing

Yes, XRP ETFs have arrived and people are cheering like it’s halftime at a Super Bowl for cryptos. Four spot ETFs in the U.S. together held about $941.7 million as of Dec. 18. The tickers break down roughly like this: GXRP at $148.1 million, XRPC at $373.6 million, XRPZ at $189 million, and Bitwise’s XRP product at $215.6 million. That stack jumped from roughly $336 million at launch in November to current levels in under two months—fast applause, confetti cannons, the whole circus.

But here’s the plot twist: the ETF story is one thing; the real action might be the slow, steady money-moving machinery under the hood. On-Demand Liquidity (ODL)—the payment rail that actually settles cross-border flows in XRP—processed about $15 billion in 2024, a healthy 32% year-over-year rise. Meanwhile, a particular stablecoin supply sitting on the ledger was around $293 million as of Dec. 19. So yes, ETFs are flashy, but the payment plumbing quietly moves way more value over time.

RippleNet now includes 300-plus financial institutions across 55+ countries, and roughly 40% of those are actually using XRP for ODL rather than just the messaging features. ODL covers more than 70 corridor pairs and claims to touch about 80% of major remittance routes. Some research groups even flagged about $1.3 billion of ODL volume in Q2 2025 alone. And when you expand the view to all RippleNet traffic—including corridors that settle in fiat only—the network was reportedly pushing north of $15 billion per month in cross-border volume by 2025.

Important nuance: a lot of institutions use RippleNet like a messaging highway and still settle in fiat. XRP steps in where pre-funding and FX spreads make token risk worth the tradeoff. So the meaningful metrics aren’t just how many clients are on the roster, but how many corridors actually route value through XRP, how much ODL volume they produce, and whether that traffic grows without ETF headlines.

What would make XRP adoption feel real (and not just ETF-driven)?

If ETF assets level off around $1.6–$1.7 billion, there are a few clear things that would convince skeptics the demand is structural and not just headline hunting:

1) ODL keeps climbing: Annualized ODL volume needs to move from the high-single billions into the tens of billions and stay there. More than half of RippleNet partners should be actively choosing XRP over fiat-only rails, and corridor expansion should be visible in disclosed volumes rather than pilot-speak.

2) On-chain usage actually grows: XRPL’s daily throughput in Q3 2025 sat around 1.8 million transactions per day (up about 9% quarter-on-quarter) with finality in roughly 3–5 seconds. Daily active sender addresses were about 25,300, and total addresses hit near 6.9 million after adding 447,200 new accounts that quarter. Payments already make up the lion’s share of activity—about 56%—and weekly payment counts were reported as up roughly 430% versus 2023. Those curves need to keep trending up even if ETF inflows chill.

3) Liquidity quality holds: XRP is being treated more like a top-tier tradable asset than a fringe token. Kaiko’s ranking gave XRP a very high score for liquidity and market depth, and early-2025 daily trading volume averaged around $1.73 billion. But the real test is what happens to order-book depth, bid-ask spreads, and derivatives open interest if ETF flows normalize. If market makers and natural corridor demand keep things tight, that’s a vote of confidence.

4) Stablecoins and tokenized assets mature on the ledger: XRPL’s tokenized real-world assets had a market cap in the hundreds of millions by Q3 2025, up sharply quarter-on-quarter. A flagship stablecoin supply across chains reached about $1.3 billion total, with a meaningful portion on XRPL. For on-ledger adoption to be durable, RLUSD and RWA issuance need to grow into system-level liquidity and collateral on XRPL rather than drifting over to other chains.

If those four things happen while ETF AUM sits flat, we can say ETFs were just an easy access point—not the whole story. If they don’t, the 2025–26 momentum will look an awful lot like an ETF-fueled sprint that faded when the music stopped.

So yeah: ETFs are exciting, headlines make for great tweets, and money in ETFs is measurable and real. But when it comes to whether XRP becomes a payments staple rather than a press-cycle darling, I’m putting my chips on the plumbing. The pipes—not the ticker—will tell the tale.