Ripple’s business is booming while its native token XRP is struggling, creating one of the crypto market’s strangest disconnects in 2026. The company has signed roughly 10 major institutional deals this year, yet the XRP token has fallen more than 40 percent in the same period.
The divergence was highlighted by a recent integration with institutional crypto platform EDX Markets, which is backed by financial heavyweights including Citadel Securities and Fidelity Investments. “The partnership gives clients unified access to spot markets and perpetual futures through a single framework,” EDX CEO Michael Higgins said. However, the deal’s primary settlement and margin asset will be the stablecoin Ripple USD (RLUSD), not XRP.
This move reveals a strategic compromise to win over Wall Street, which demands the stability of dollar-backed assets to minimize volatility in institutional-grade financial products. The decision effectively sidelines XRP from the headline marketing narrative, pushing it into a background role. In response to community questions, Evernorth Treasury, a large institutional holder of XRP, published a technical paper explaining that RLUSD serves as a regulated “outer-layer” for compliance-focused partners, while XRP acts as a decentralized, sanction-proof “inner-layer” engine for instant asset conversion within the system’s infrastructure.
For investors, this clarifies that Ripple's corporate success is not directly translating to demand for the XRP token in the way many had anticipated. The token is increasingly moving behind the scenes, serving as a neutral bridge asset rather than the flagship settlement token for major financial institutions. This strategic shift explains the token's bearish performance despite Ripple's impressive partnership announcements with firms like Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, and Mastercard.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
