XRP Crushes Bitcoin and Ethereum in Q1 2025—Here’s Why
Ripple’s latest report drops a bombshell: XRP outperformed both BTC and ETH last quarter. While Bitcoin maxis were busy arguing about ordinals and Ethereum devs wrestled with layer-2 fragmentation, the ’banker coin’ quietly posted triple-digit gains.
The institutional edge: Real-world adoption—not speculative hype—drove XRP’s surge. Cross-border payment corridors saw record volume as banks finally stopped pretending they’d build their own chains.
Regulatory clarity pays off: With the SEC lawsuit in the rearview, institutional money flooded in. Meanwhile, crypto’s ’blue chips’ got stuck in ETF approval purgatory—because nothing says decentralization like begging Wall Street for validation.
XRP’s rise proves one ugly truth: in crypto, sometimes the ’boring’ solution wins. Especially when the ’revolutionary’ alternatives can’t settle a transaction without $50 in gas fees.
A Legal Victory and a Regulatory Shift
XRP’s newfound dominance is deeply tied to its victory over the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which, according to Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, finally dropped its appeal after years of legal wrangling.
The regulator’s retreat also came with a reduction in a $125 million fine that had been imposed on Ripple, with the company now expected to pay $50 million, clearing the path for institutional participation.
But the courtroom wasn’t XRP’s only battleground this quarter, with the report highlighting its triumph in the markets as well. In early 2025, the cryptocurrency experienced a rally that grew its price by 50%, briefly touching $3.40, a level not reached since early 2018. This surge came even as fellow altcoins Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL) registered double-digit declines and Bitcoin (BTC) remained largely flat.
The fourth-ranked cryptocurrency by market cap has since shed some of its gains from that February run. Its current price of $2.12 is a 2.5% drop from 24 hours ago, and a 6.5% dip over the past week, according to CoinGecko. However, zooming out reveals a 295% gain year-over-year, a stark contrast to Bitcoin’s 47.2% increase and Ethereum’s 43.1% plunge in the same period.
According to the report, XRP’s trading volumes also mirrored this strength, as the token peaked above $16 billion in daily volume in February and maintained an average daily volume (ADV) of $3.2 billion throughout the first quarter of 2025.
However, not all indicators were flashing green. On-chain activity on XRP Ledger (XRPL) contracted alongside other layer-1 networks, with a 37% drop in transactions and a 40% dip in new wallet creation compared to Q4 2024.
Institutional Demand
Beyond price action, the institutional tide also turned in XRP’s favor. Ripple recently announced its $1.25 billion acquisition of brokerage giant Hidden Road, signaling serious ambition to embed its native token into traditional financial infrastructure.
Hidden Road plans to use RLUSD, Ripple’s U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, as collateral and integrate XRPL into its post-trade workflows for FX, swaps, and repo markets, marking a huge leap in institutional-grade blockchain adoption.
Meanwhile, Wall Street is also catching up: Investment firm Franklin Templeton has filed for a U.S.-based spot XRP ETF, the CME Group recently announced XRP futures, and the SEC has greenlit three ETF products from ProShares.
In Latin America, Brazil’s Comissão de Valores Mobiliários approved a dedicated XRP ETF, while Vermont-based Teucrium launched a Leveraged XRP product that posted $5 million in debut volume, landing in the top 5% of new ETF launches.
