XRP ETFs are booming, but a quiet $15 billion payment layer matters more than the price
While XRP ETFs are growing rapidly, the underlying $15 billion in On-Demand Liquidity payments and XRPL infrastructure are more indicative of durable adoption.Summary
Four US spot XRP ETFs have rapidly accumulated $941.7 million in assets since November, signaling significant regulated demand. However, the article argues that the true measure of XRP's adoption lies not in this ETF layer, but in the underlying payment and infrastructure layer, specifically Ripple's On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) service, which processed over $15 billion in cross-border payments in 2024.
ODL, used by about 40% of RippleNet's 300+ financial institutions, spans over 70 corridor pairs, with Asia-Pacific dominating volume. The article posits that if ETF flows stagnate, durable demand hinges on the continued growth of ODL volume, expansion of XRP-settled corridors, and sustained on-chain activity on the XRP Ledger (XRPL), such as payment transactions and Real-World Asset (RWA) tokenization, which reached hundreds of millions in market cap.
For XRP adoption to be considered durable beyond ETF hype, four conditions must be met: ODL volumes must continue growing into the tens of billions; more than half of RippleNet clients must opt for XRP settlement; XRPL's daily transaction and active address metrics must rise; and the liquidity structure, already rated highly by Kaiko, must remain robust. If these underlying metrics stall, the recent growth is deemed mostly ETF-driven rather than structural.
(Source：CryptoSlate)