For the last ten years, a curious pattern has emerged between XRP (associated with Ripple) and XLM (the native currency of Stellar): a consistent price correlation. Although XRP tends to dominate headlines, XLM’s price movements have closely mirrored its more famous counterpart.
What’s behind this persistent relationship? We explore potential explanations based on insights from experts.
Shared Characteristics of XLM and XRP Uncommon Among Other Crypto Pairs
CoinMarketCap data reveals that for over a decade, despite occasional variations in price volatility, XLM and XRP have generally followed similar upward and downward trends.
Typically, both digital assets experience a brief surge in price, followed by a prolonged period of decline, before the cycle repeats itself.
According to the correlation calculator on Defillama, the correlation coefficient between the two cryptocurrencies was 0.97 over the last month and 0.87 over the past year. Both figures indicate a strong connection.
Even Ripple’s CTO, David Schwartz, acknowledged this phenomenon back in August 2024. However, he confessed to being unsure of the precise reasons behind it.
“I genuinely don’t know what influences XRP’s price. The only concrete data I have is that XRP’s price and market cap align remarkably well with XLM across all timeframes,” David Schwartz stated.
However, crypto market participants are aware that XLM was the creation of Jed McCaleb, a former member of Ripple’s founding team.
Upon departing Ripple in 2014 to establish Stellar Development, Jed McCaleb received XRP holdings valued at over $9 billion. Given this background, investors often consider both XRP and XLM together when assessing the leadership and origins of these digital currencies.
Another theory, which recently surfaced, points to automated trading programs. Vincent Van Code, a prominent software engineer on X, suggested that these bots react almost instantly to news. When XRP’s price experiences substantial volatility, these bots concurrently trade in correlated assets such as XLM.
Finally, both XRP and XLM share a similar goal of streamlining international payments. The recent official adoption of the ISO 20022 financial messaging standard by the US Federal Reserve through the Fedwire system has reignited interest in both assets.
“Same purpose, different cryptocurrencies,” investor Sushil Pathiyar remarked.
XLM vs. XRP – Which is the Superior Choice?
As of 2025, XRP has risen to prominence as a leading cryptocurrency, attracting both individual and institutional investment. This increased interest has also brought XLM into the spotlight as a comparable alternative.
Some market observers even suggest that XLM has the potential to outperform XRP. This perspective gains traction when comparing particular on-chain metrics, like daily active addresses and total value locked (TVL). For instance, since the start of July, XLM has seen a 100% increase, while XRP has risen by 35%.
Data from Artemis indicates that XLM recently boasted approximately 80,000 daily active addresses, in contrast to XRP’s roughly 33,000. Furthermore, XLM’s TVL exceeds $137 million, surpassing XRP’s TVL by a factor of two.
While XLM’s TVL was lower than XRP’s in May, it has since surpassed it, highlighting the intense competition between the two in terms of on-chain adoption.
“XLM offers everything XRP provides, but with added advantages,” investor Gordon commented.
However, an examination of Google Trends data reveals that XLM significantly trails XRP in terms of overall popularity. This discrepancy reflects the level of interest from the general investing public.
As a result, XLM struggles to compete with XRP in terms of exchange trading volume. Consequently, XRP boasts a daily trading volume exceeding $6 billion, while XLM’s volume is only approximately $1.3 billion.
Positive news surrounding a potential XRP ETF and Ripple’s connections to political figures could further benefit XRP.
Determining which asset is “better” is subjective and depends on the criteria considered. Nonetheless, it appears that these two assets are likely to maintain their price correlation in the foreseeable future.
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