Market context
The disconnect at the top of the XRP file is the entire story. Ripple's institutional flywheel is spinning faster than at any point in the asset's history. SoFi enabled XRP deposits and withdrawals for 13.
7 million banking customers in late April. Reports tie BlackRock and Mastercard to XRP Ledger DeFi pilots. Real-world asset activity on XRPL is up 875%.
Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin sits inside the Monetary Authority of Singapore sandbox for live trade settlement. Brad Garlinghouse used the Bitcoin 2026 stage in Las Vegas this week to push back on the idea that Ripple has drifted from its native token, per BeInCrypto, while Evernorth, the Ripple-backed XRP treasury company, named OpenAI Foundation CFO Robert Kaiden and Antalpha COO Derar Islim to its board ahead of a Nasdaq listing, according to a second SEC S-4 amendment first reported by Crypto.
News. That is a lot of news. The price chart does not show it.
XRP traded at $1. 3749 on Friday morning, per the most recent quote in NewsBTC's coverage of the Schwartz exchange. It is down roughly 62% from the July 2025 all-time high of $3.
65, sitting close to the midpoint of a $1. 25 to $1. 50 range that has held for roughly 10 weeks.
The 50-day, 100-day and 200-day moving averages all sit overhead and have flattened. Volume on the way down was heavy. Volume on the recovery has been muted.
A reader's question writes itself. If the adoption story is this strong, why is the tape this quiet?
