While $XRP has continued to face declines, the Chairman of Yellow believes the market has not yet priced in three bullish ecosystem developments.
$XRP has remained under pressure along with the crypto market, falling 28.8% since the start of the year. This prolonged decline has wiped out over $90 billion in market value, putting $XRP on track for a sixth straight month of losses, a first in 12 years.
Despite the weak performance, some analysts believe the market is overlooking major developments that could support a recovery. Alexis Sirkia, Chairman of Yellow, recently highlighted three important ecosystem developments that have not yet been fully reflected in $XRP’s price.
Key Points
- $XRP has fallen 28.8% in 2026 and 53.9% since October 2025, losing over $90 billion in market cap.
- Yellow Chairman Sirkia insists that the $XRP market has not yet priced in three bullish ecosystem developments.
- One such development is regulatory clarity, as the SEC and CFTC recently branded $XRP a digital commodity.
- The second involves multiple upgrades that the $XRP Ledger has recorded in recent years to attract more institutional use.
- The link between $XRP and $RLUSD, which has continued to see impressive growth, represents the third bullish development.
Regulatory Clarity Could Lead to Institutional Access
Sirkia revealed this while speaking with Cointelegraph Magazine. Specifically, he first called attention to regulatory clarity. For context, earlier this month, the U.S. SEC and the CFTC released a 68-page interpretive rule explaining how existing securities laws apply to crypto assets.
In the document, regulators introduced a functional classification system and labeled $XRP, along with assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and Cardano, as a digital commodity.
Sirkia noted that this decision removes a major barrier that had kept large institutions on the sidelines. As the U.S. adopts clearer rules, pension funds, asset managers, and bank treasuries can begin to take part in the market.
He suggested that the focus now moves to how these institutions will respond and what opportunities they will see. To him, this change is a strong positive signal that the market has not yet fully priced in for $XRP.
XRPL Upgrades to Attract Institutional Adoption
The second point Sirkia raised focuses on the upgrades to the $XRP Ledger. He called this campaign a “quiet transformation” into a system that focuses on compliance and real-world use.
According to him, over the past two years, developers have introduced six major upgrades, adding features like on-chain identity checks, asset clawback options, and a permissioned decentralized exchange.
Specifically, the Automated Market Maker (AMM) feature went live in March 2024 to bring built-in liquidity to the decentralized exchange. Then, Multi-Purpose Tokens (MPT) launched in October 2025, allowing more flexible token creation with detailed data for real-world assets.
Meanwhile, further upgrades have followed in 2026. Notably, Permissioned Domains (XLS-80), launched in February, made it possible to create controlled environments on the public ledger, while Permissioned DEX (XLS-81), also introduced last month, allowed verified participants to trade in a compliant setting.
The Native Lending Protocol (XLS-66) with Single Asset Vaults also entered its voting and activation stage through rippled v3.1.0, which will add fixed-term lending and credit features. Essentially, these upgrades show how the $XRP Ledger is becoming more suitable for institutional use.
$RLUSD Growth and Connection to $XRP
For the third point, Sirkia discussed the link between $XRP and Ripple’s stablecoin, $RLUSD. Ripple launched the product in December 2024 through its regulated unit, Standard Custody & Trust.
Sirkia said many people misunderstand how $RLUSD and $XRP relate to each other. He explained that they are not competitors but instead work together.
Specifically, $XRP acts as a fast and low-cost settlement layer, while $RLUSD provides a stable unit of value. As $RLUSD grows, it increases activity on the $XRP Ledger, which in turn supports $XRP. He added that prices usually follow real usage, but markets often take time to catch up.
$RLUSD’s growth has been strong since launch. It reached a market cap of about $294 million by April 2025, just three months after launch, and then passed $600 million in supply by July 2025. Today, the token now holds a $1.41 billion value, currently the eighth-largest stablecoin globally.
