Ripple reports $900m run rate and BNY custody as XRP lags

What happened

At Ripple's Swell 2026 event in New York, CEO Brad Garlinghouse told attendees that Ripple "will never give up on XRP" and described the token and the company's RLUSD stablecoin as complementary, according to 99Bitcoins. The remarks came as Ripple said it expects to exit 2026 with a $900 million annualized product revenue run rate, Cryptonews.com reported, and as BNY expanded its digital-asset custody work to include XRP and RLUSD.

The company's institutional momentum has not been matched by its token. 99Bitcoins reported that Ripple bought back $750 million of its own shares in March at a $50 billion valuation, up from $40 billion in November. XRP, by contrast, trades at $1.29, 30% below its starting level this year, about half its price a year earlier and 64.6% below the $3.65 record it set in July 2025.

BNY's expanded role gives eligible institutional clients access to XRP and RLUSD custody. As of Sept. 30, BNY oversaw $63.4 trillion in assets under custody and administration and $2.2 trillion in assets under management, according to Cryptonews.com. Ripple and BNY are also exploring tokenized trade finance on the XRP Ledger, starting with a possible supplier-finance initiative involving working-capital platform C2FO.

Why it matters

The reports frame a split between Ripple's private business and the public token. Owning XRP does not make an investor a Ripple shareholder; the March buyback went to holders of Ripple's private shares, 99Bitcoins noted. Much of Ripple's newer activity runs on RLUSD, a dollar-backed stablecoin that can settle transactions without requiring XRP, except for small network fees. BNY custody may make XRP easier for institutions to hold, but the reports do not show that access alone creates sustained buying demand.

What the data shows

XRP's fee burn is small relative to supply releases. 99Bitcoins cited XRP Ledger data showing 153,989 XRP burned in fees since Jan. 1, worth about $199,000 at the current price. Over the prior 30 days, 27,573 XRP was burned, about $35,600. Ripple's escrow releases 1 billion XRP each month; the 1 billion unlocked on Oct. 1 remained in two Ripple wallets of 500 million each, and another 1 billion was due to unlock on Sunday, Nov. 1.

On the chart, 99Bitcoins said XRP trades below its 200-week exponential moving average of $1.3715 and its 50-week EMA of $1.4928, with three consecutive weekly closes under the 200-week line. It has ranged between roughly $1.00 and $1.70 since June, with August's jump from $0.986 to $1.70 fading and September's push to $1.658 stalling near the 50-week EMA.

Background

Ripple has been building beyond cross-border payments into custody, stablecoins, prime brokerage and corporate treasury services, Cryptonews.com reported. Its payments network is approaching $150 billion in lifetime transaction volume by the end of 2026, and Ripple said more than $16 trillion in transactions ran across its products during 2025. The company also said customers and partners using multiple Ripple products tripled this year, while its Swell release put RLUSD at $2.6 billion, up more than 88% this year, with more than 1,700 institutional customers.

What is still unclear

Whether Ripple's institutional expansion translates into XRP demand remains unresolved. The C2FO initiative is designed to use RLUSD for settlement on the XRP Ledger, and a bank settling RLUSD would pay network fees in XRP that are burned, but the reports say those amounts are tiny. A proposed lending upgrade could change XRP's role by using it as collateral, but it had 18 votes and needed 25, according to 99Bitcoins.

What to watch

After Swell, 99Bitcoins identified two near-term items: whether the 1 billion XRP unlocked on Nov. 1 stays in Ripple's wallets, and whether the lending upgrade reaches 25 votes. Cryptonews.com also points to adoption of BNY's XRP and RLUSD custody and the potential C2FO trade-finance work as tests of whether institutional infrastructure changes how the token is used. The reports do not forecast price direction.

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