XRP is attracting institutional money and a burst of bullish positioning, even as much of the crypto industry remains stuck in a risk-off tape.
According to one Coin shares reportXRP is the best performing crypto token this year, attracting around $150 million in fresh capital, while Bitcoin and Ethereum have recorded cumulative outflows of around $1.5 billion.
The simplest takeaway is not: “XRP is bullish.” It is that investors are actively switching to assets other than BTC and ETH at a time when the broader tape remains unstable.
This difference is also reflected in market sentiment.
Blockchain analytics platform Santiment launched on February 18 said XRP sentiment hit a five-week high in bullish commentary, while talk around Bitcoin and Ethereum cooled.
However, the broader backdrop of the crypto market doesn’t do XRP any favors, and not everyone is convinced the catalysts are big enough to matter in the near term.
For context, Standard Chartered recently cut its end-2026 XRP target from $8.00 to $2.80 in a note distributed after the February sell-off, with the bank’s digital asset research team warning of “further declines” in the asset class.
Still, industry experts believe that the new catalysts for XRP usage, especially in collateralized and regulated trading infrastructure, could become big enough to matter and help the token record a strong year.
Coinbase loans expand XRP’s role from trading to collateral
One of the clearest catalysts is related to the use of XRP in the fast-growing crypto lending space.
On February 18, Coinbase, the largest US-based crypto exchange, added support for XRP (in addition to DOGE, ADA, and LTC) as eligible collateral for up to $100,000 USDC loans.
A Coinbase spokesperson said this CryptoSlate That:
“These assets were chosen due to a number of factors, including our ability to bring these tokens onto Base and the Morpho protocol, as well as the amount of these tokens our customers hold on Coinbase.”
The details matter because the suitability of collateral changes the range of reasons for holding an asset.
Payment usage can be high volume and high speed. Tokens move quickly, balances don’t necessarily stay in the wallet for long, and the market doesn’t always need to stockpile large amounts.
However, asset collateral behaves differently. When a token becomes loanable collateral, some holders no longer view it as something they need to sell to access liquidity. They can post it, borrow against it and hold the position.
That could lead to increased demand. Borrowers who want to keep loans open often need to maintain collateral, and during volatility they can add more collateral to avoid liquidation.
Meanwhile, the same mechanism cuts both ways. If the market gap narrows and collateral values fall rapidly, forced liquidations could reinforce the downward trend.
Permissioned Domains and a gated DEX are intended to bring regulated liquidity to the ledger
A second catalyst emerges in XRPL’s infrastructure rather than in its partners’ headlines.
In recent weeks, the
That’s a different pitch than the open-access model associated with networks like Ethereum.
The premise is simple: institutions want blockchain settlement and tokenized rails, but they also need guardrails tied to real-world compliance, counterparty policies, and internal controls.
A permissioned trading environment, in which participation is limited by credentials, is similar to the way traditional markets already segment access across locations, products, and types of participants.
For institutions, that structure can make on-ledger trading feel less like a leap into public DeFi and more like an extension of familiar market plumbing.
The functions themselves are not the end point. The real test is whether they get used to it.
If authorized domains and the gated DEX become a location layer that institutions actually rely on, the proof should show up in the mechanics: more authorized domains launched, steady reference activity, and order book liquidity that holds up beyond the pilot phases.
If that adoption becomes a reality, it could strengthen XRP’s longer-term arguments, less about “a new DEX” and more about market structure.
This is because these upgrades can attract market makers, keep inventory on the ledger, and maintain tradable depth, which is important when institutions are deciding whether a location can handle the size.
Ripple’s institutional structure
Over the past year, Ripple has grown from a single cross-border payments product to a broader institutional stack that looks more like a full-service digital asset platform than a pure crypto payments company.
At its center is a lineup that now includes Ripple Payments for settlement, Ripple Custody for asset safeguarding, and Ripple Prime, the institutional brokerage offering.
Ripple is also making deeper inroads into treasury operations through GTreasury, while RLUSD, the dollar-backed stablecoin, is positioned as a settlement and collateral asset in that ecosystem.
The strategic logic is simple: if payments, custody, brokerage and treasury tools are all within one network, Ripple can keep more of the transaction lifecycle on track, with activity flowing through the XRPL and adjacent infrastructure.
In that model, XRP can benefit as liquidity moves through the corridors and institutions look for efficient ways to capture value and rebalance, while RLUSD can serve as the regulated, cash-like unit for settlement and collateral management.
Meanwhile, Ripple has also pursued a more “regulated perimeter” posture. The company has settled its long-running SEC dispute while obtaining a national bank charter from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Monet (OCC).
These developments are taking place alongside wider regulatory developments in Britain and the European Union.
In light of this, what matters for XRP is whether this institutional stack converts into sustainable real-world volume.
In particular, early signals point to increasing experimentation by major financial players, including Société Générale’s SG-FORGE, which extensive its stablecoin efforts for the XRPL with EUR CoinVertible (EURCV).
This implementation is supported by Ripple Custody and is based on broader use cases, including collateral and integration into institutional workflows.
As these integrations scale, they will do more than just validate Ripple’s product roadmap.
They increase the likelihood that XRP will become part of the “plumbing” behind institutional crypto payments and treasury movements, with adoption measured less by headlines and more by recurring settlement flows.
How XRP Wins in 2026
It’s unlikely that XRP’s success this year will hinge on a single headline. Instead, it will depend on usage continuing at key points.
Given all this, three points of interest stand out.
Firstly, the share of collateral in regular lending. If Coinbase’s lending product shows continued growth with XRP as meaningful collateral, the case for productive demand becomes stronger. It doesn’t have to become dominant overnight, but it does have to become repetitive behavior.
Second, allowable liquidity that lasts. If permissioned DEX domains host sustainable liquidity, rather than launch week noise, it supports the idea that regulated on-chain markets can develop on XRPL in a way that institutions can actually use.
Third, relative flows. If flow data continues to show interest in XRP while majors struggle, it could sustain a rotation even in the face of a choppy macro tape.
These points translate into a scenario range that traders can pressure test.
In a bull case, risk appetite improves, XRP becomes a common collateral in US credit wrappers, and permitted markets attract institutional liquidity early. Flows follow and the narrative shift becomes self-reinforcing.
In a base case, XRP benefits from episodic catalysts including credit additions and infrastructure milestones, but broader crypto liquidity remains uneven. XRP performs better in breakouts without a linear trend.
In a bear case, macro remains tight, leverage decreases, and new rails do not translate into meaningful use. XRP remains headline-driven and vulnerable to the same liquidity drops that likely drove Standard Chartered’s downgrade.