XRP Price: Is It Worth Buying for the Long Term?

TLDR

• XRP settles transactions in 3–5 seconds with low fees, giving it a real use case in cross-border payments
• Roughly 33–34 billion XRP remains locked in escrow, creating ongoing supply pressure
• The SEC case ended in 2025 with a $125 million fine; XRP sales on public exchanges were ruled not securities
• Ripple’s own RLUSD stablecoin can substitute for XRP in payments, weakening direct value capture
• At ~$65.9 billion market cap, XRP is a credible long-term hold but not a clear bargain

XRP has been around long enough to build a real track record. It settles in 3 to 5 seconds, charges low fees, and powers Ripple’s cross-border payment platform. Those are facts, not marketing.

The XRP Ledger (XRPL) logged 769,646 transactions in a single day on June 16, 2026. Earlier in 2026, successful payments hit over 2.7 million at peak periods. That level of activity shows the network is being used.

The XRPL has also expanded beyond basic payments. It now includes native automated market makers (AMMs) and oracle integrations, adding basic DeFi infrastructure to the network.

The Escrow Problem

One key issue for long-term investors is supply. CoinGecko puts circulating supply at around 62 billion XRP, with total supply approaching 100 billion. Around 33 to 34 billion XRP still sits in escrow.

Ripple releases up to 1 billion XRP per month from escrow. Unused portions get re-escrowed, making the schedule more predictable than most token unlocks. But the overhang is large, and it limits the scarcity argument.

Does Ripple’s Growth Help XRP?

This is where the long-term case gets complicated. Ripple’s payment platform lets customers settle using XRP or its own RLUSD stablecoin. If Ripple wins more business but routes it through RLUSD, XRP demand does not grow in step.

RLUSD already had a market cap above $611 million by August 2025, with figures rising further since. That growth shows RLUSD is gaining traction as an alternative settlement option inside Ripple’s own ecosystem.

For long-term XRP holders, this is the central question: how much of Ripple’s future success actually flows back into XRP?

Legal Standing

The legal picture improved in 2025. Reuters reported the SEC case ended with Ripple paying a $125 million fine. The court ruling confirmed that XRP sales on public exchanges were not securities transactions, though certain institutional sales by Ripple did violate securities laws.

That outcome gives XRP more regulatory clarity than most altcoins currently have in the U.S.

The XRPL’s governance has also evolved. Ripple now runs only 1 of 35 validators on the default trusted list, with oversight shifting to the XRPL Foundation.

At roughly $66 billion market cap, XRP is one of the larger crypto assets. That size means most of the upside from its existing strengths may already be priced in.

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