XRP has not been able to make holders as rich as Bitcoin and Ether. Here is the reason

XRP remains below its 2017 cycle highs while Bitcoin, Ether and other major tokens have rallied and enriched their holders.

Holding is widely touted as a great way to build wealth in the cryptocurrency market, but it hasn't worked for every coin.

XRP (XRP), a payments-focused digital currency, is native to the XRP Ledger and the world's fifth largest digital asset by market capitalization.

The token is still trading below its 2017 cycle high, while most other major cryptocurrencies have climbed well above their counterparts. In 2017, crypto entered the mainstream and attracted new users and investors during a period that spanned the first week or two of 2018.

XRP is currently trading around $1.33, down 62.5% from its January 2018 peak of $3.55. In other words, an XRP buyer from that peak is still underwater, nearly nine years later. (XRP briefly hit an all-time high of $3.66 in July 2025 before collapsing.)

Bitcoin Bitcoin is at $80,955.28, up 314% from its peak of $19,804 in December 2017. Dogecoin DOGE $0.08227 is up 322% from its January 2018 high and BNB BNB $729.76 is up about 2800%. Ether is up 66% at $2,442.16 and zcash (ZEC) is up 38%. Tron is also slightly below its peak and has decreased by about 4%. Solana was launched in 2020.

Bitcoin, Ether and many other tokens have retreated sharply from their 2025 highs, yet remain well above their 2017 highs.

"Circulating supply is up 63% from 38.7 billion in 2017 to 63.1 billion, while the total market value of XRP only fell by about 3%," Nikolai Søndergaard, senior research analyst at analytics firm Nansen, told CoinDesk. "More XRP in circulation means that each token represents a smaller stake of roughly the same total value."

Circulating supply is the number of coins in the market, and as it grows, each coin represents a smaller share of the total.

Oliver Carding, head of marketing at Tesseract Group, says XRP looks better when measured by total value rather than price.

"In value, XRP recovered," he said. "About 63% more XRP is in circulation than that peak, so the same market cap in circulation means the price is roughly 39% lower."

Tesseract is an institutional digital asset management company managing over $500 million in assets under management.

US exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, have opened the door for institutional investors to gain exposure to digital assets. While Bitcoin and Ether funds have reached the billions, XRP funds have lagged far behind.

"ETF receipts have also declined relative to $BTC and $ETH," says Paul Howard, senior director of market maker Wincent.

To date, XRP funds have only attracted $1.80 billion in investor money since they launched nearly a year ago, according to data source SoSoValue. Bitcoin ETFs often attract more than $1 billion of investor money in a single day.

Nansen data also shows that trading activity has weakened, with XRP trading volume down 53.5%, permanent futures trading volume down 44% and active addresses down 10.7%.

Ripple, the payments company close to XRP, is focusing on cross-border payments rather than pursuing sectors like DeFi, AI, and memecoins that have attracted more capital flow and deeper integration with traditional finance.

“Ripple, meanwhile, has been working hard to build payment infrastructure, RLUSD and trade finance products using the ledger and coin, taking that focus away from just the original XRP,” Howard said.

"The role of DeFi to invest in ETH, SOL and HYPE has also been a new narrative that XRP has not focused on," Howard said.

Ripple's litigation with US regulators has also set back XRP.

The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Ripple and two of its executives in December 2020, saying the company raised about $1.3 billion by selling XRP without registering it as a security.

A federal judge ruled in 2023 that selling XRP on public exchanges is not a securities offering, but a sale to institutional investors. In 2024, Ripple was ordered to pay a fine of $125 million. The case ended in August 2025, when both sides dropped their appeals.

Long-term regulatory uncertainty helps explain why the token lost its previous highs during the crypto bull run in 2021, when Coinbase suspended trading, Carding said.

"The SEC filing helps explain why XRP did not rebound to its 2018 high in 2021 when Coinbase suspended trading, but the appeal was canceled in August 2025 with XRP above $3," Carding said. Since then, XRP is down about 59% compared to 32% for Bitcoin and 44% for Ether, and its circulating market cap is down about 56%.

XRP isn't the only coin trading lower than early 2018

In terms of price, six of the other nine assets in the top ten for January 2018 are well below that week's levels, Carding said.

For those watching XRP, Carding has an offer.

"What I'm watching is XRP versus Bitcoin, along with monthly net distributions after redeposits and changes in fund holdings," he said. "The relative weakness that continues as supply declines points to a decline in demand."

In plain English, Carding is investigating whether XRP will underperform Bitcoin, even as fewer new XRP tokens enter the market via Ripple's escrow versions. If supply growth slows but XRP continues to lag behind Bitcoin, this indicates that investor demand for XRP is weakening.

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