In its latest markets report that was released today, Ripple claimed that its XRP exploded with a 280% growth in the Q4 of 2024. And of course the surge was triggered by the perfect storm of Trump’s election win, a calm Federal Reserve, and institutional investors piling into crypto assets like there was no tomorrow.
XRP’s price climbed from the ashes of SEC suppression in a comeback after years of legal chaos when it finally saw its biggest nemesis, former SEC chair Gary Gensler, handing in his resignation.
According to Ripple’s report , between mid-November and December, XRP trading volumes averaged $5 billion daily, which is a pretty wild increase from $500 million just the month before.
XRP dominated spot markets, US traders went all in
Ripple’s report also says that most of the XRP activity came from spot trading. Binance accounted for 36% of global spot XRP volume, followed by Upbit at 20%, and Coinbase at 9%. US institutional investors like WisdomTree and Coinshares submitted filings for spot XRP ETFs, joining Bitwise and Canary Capital.
With Ripple’s legal pressure easing, big money is treating XRP like the next big thing. I mean, we just reported that Canada is trying to launch an XRP ETF before America.
Bitcoin’s rise to $109,000 also helped XRP along the way, as the BTC/XRP trading pair surged 130% over the quarter. And while volatility spiked from 40% in early November to 200%, investors stayed confident. By December 30th, XRP’s price reached $2.70, a 500% increase from its November levels.
Ripple expanded XRP Ledger utility and stablecoin adoption
By Q4’s end, Ripple Payments had had $70 billion in global transactions, with its RLUSD stablecoin acting as a critical bridge for cross-border payments. Ripple reported that RLUSD had been integrated into payment networks like Bitstamp, MoonPay, Uphold, and Independent Reserve.
Ripple’s stablecoin strategy reportedly came with monthly reserve reports carried out by third-party auditors, to ensure trust in the reserves backing RLUSD. XRP Ledger wallet creation exploded to 709,000, up from just 140,000 in Q3.
Ripple’s report said that XRP’s average price soared from $0.55 to $1.43 over the quarter, with burned XRP rising from 592,000 to 724,000 tokens.
On-chain activity didn’t slow down either. Trustlines on the ledger grew from 7.3 million to 7.9 million, with 37,000 new trustlines tied directly to RLUSD adoption. Ripple’s AMM feature, which launched last March, reported $774 million in swap volume, compared to $31 million in the previous quarter.
Decentralized exchange (DEX) volume shot past $1 billion, with AMM swaps making up 77% of it. Ripple pushed out new tech upgrades as well. The XLS-40 amendment brought decentralized identifiers (DIDs) to the ledger, and a native oracle protocol was integrated with Band Protocol and DIA.
According to the report, this gave XRP Ledger real-time price feeds that could support lending, tokenization, and market-making operations. Archax, an FCA-regulated digital asset exchange, teamed up with abrdn to tokenize money market funds on the XRP Ledger.
Societe Generale announced plans to deploy its MiCA-compliant stablecoin EURCV on the same network. Ripple claims that the ledger has fast 3-5 second settlements, low transaction fees, and built-in compliance tools.
SEC lawsuit updates and regulatory breakthroughs
Ripple’s legal saga with the SEC didn’t end, but the company gained the upper hand. On January 15, the SEC filed an opening brief in its appeal. Ripple argued that the brief rehashed already-failed arguments and ignored the incoming crypto-friendly Trump administration.
Ripple will respond formally by April 16. Interestingly enough, the SEC’s appeal doesn’t actually question whether XRP itself is a security, which Judge Analisa Torres had already ruled against in 2023.
But the SEC has reversed course a little. It scrapped SAB 121, a policy that had previously discouraged banks from working with crypto companies. The policy’s removal was a result of GAO findings that determined SAB 121 violated rulemaking processes.
Ripple’s Q4 report included updated figures on its XRP holdings. As of December 31, 2024, Ripple claimed it had 4.48 billion XRP, up from 4.43 billion on September 30.
The total XRP subject to on-ledger escrow dropped from 38.9 billion to 38.03 billion tokens. Ripple explained that these escrow funds are released monthly, with any unused tokens returned to escrow.
The company clarified that it sometimes transfers XRP to third parties like ETPs or trusts but only when it expects the tokens to remain within its ecosystem.
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