XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) is priced at $1.43 as of August 28, reflecting a remarkable 33% gain over the past month. Despite this impressive surge and momentum, I have decided not to increase my holdings beyond what I have accumulated via the Canary XRP ETF.
Ultimately, I believe that the coin’s recent uptick does not correlate with its intrinsic value, leading to a growing skepticism about that value overall. Let me elaborate.
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Revenue from the network isn’t reaching holders
The primary factor I see behind XRP’s price increase is the Senate’s decision to schedule a vote on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act for September 15. If this legislation is enacted, it could significantly benefit XRP by providing a clearer framework for institutions interested in holding and trading cryptocurrencies.
However, this potential change doesn’t directly correlate with XRP’s capacity to create real economic value or pass that value onto its holders. In the second quarter, the XRP Ledger brought in $48,168 from transaction fees. These fees are burned, reducing the supply, which theoretically should increase the value of the remaining coins.
Regardless of these reductions, the circulating supply continues to grow over time.
In the first half of 2026, approximately 272 million XRP were released into circulation monthly due to ongoing distributions from escrow managed by Ripple, with the maximum supply approaching 100 billion XRP. An asset management firm, 21Shares, suggests that the network’s fee revenue would need to increase by around 12,700 times just to balance out a single year’s worth of new supply entering the market.
This simply doesn’t seem feasible.
The complexities at hand
I cannot justify acquiring more XRP, given that its supply is on a gradual rise and it may attract significant utilization, potentially validating its worth as a financial technology, all without providing any benefits to its holders.
In essence, I don’t believe this is a prudent time to invest in the coin, especially when Ripple could form agreements with major banks globally, and the ledger could support a plethora of tokenized assets, yet XRP’s value may remain stagnant. The significant divide between the overall success of the network and the coin’s performance is a substantial concern.