The Year in XRP 2025: New Highs After 7 Years as Ripple’s SEC Case Finally Ends

Crypto’s biggest wins are often closely tied to the rise in asset prices, but Ripple’s 2025 successes extend far beyond the price of XRP– the Ripple-linked asset that is in the top five crypto assets by market capitalization.

Instead, most of the top financial services headlines were irrelevant to trading screens, most notably the conclusion of the years-long battle with the SEC, major acquisitions to fuel future growth, and the launch of a billion-dollar stablecoin product: RLUSD.

Below we look back at the biggest highlights for XRP and Ripple in 2025.

The Ripple, SEC saga is coming to an end

More than four years after it began, the legal dispute between Ripple Labs Inc. began. and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officially ends in August.

The landmark case, which examined whether or not the sale of

However, with the election of President Donald Trump and a more crypto-friendly regulatory governancethe couple chose to a jointly negotiated solution in early 2025.

That negotiated resolution came later denied by a U.S. district judgeand then by the court, so ultimately the pair agreed to withdraw their respective appeals – ending the case for good and cementing the 2023 ruling in Ripple’s favor as a precedent for future crypto classifications.

XRP marks a new all-time high

Before 2025, XRP last traded above $3.00 in 2018.

Seven years later, and about a month before the conclusion of Ripple Labs’ year-long legal battle with the SEC, Ripple-pegged XRP was launched. made a new all-time high at $3.65According to data from CoinGecko, the price is rising above the previous high of $3.40 from 2018.

That made XRP the third-largest crypto asset by market capitalization at the time, after Bitcoin and Ethereum. Now that supervision of regulators is decreasing, analysts said at the time Declutter that investors “believed in Ripple’s vision for a regulatory-compliant blockchain for institutions.”

While the meteoric rise put the token in a range it hadn’t seen since 2018, investment firms like Standard Chartered maintained even higher year-end price targets for XRP over the summer — expecting a move to $5.50 by year’s end.

However, that figure now seems unlikely, despite the acceleration of the tokenization trend that Standard Chartered highlighted as a potential catalyst for the price of XRP.

XRP, now the fourth largest asset by market cap, changed hands to $1.90 on December 15, down about 48% from its all-time high in July.

XRP joins ETF party

Following the adoption and subsequent success of ETFs for crypto giants Bitcoin and Ethereum, investors and fund issuers alike were eager to bring altcoin ETFs – such as those for XRP, Solana and Dogecoin – to market.

As a result, applications for altcoin ETFs flooded the SEC, and in June expert opinions predicted the likelihood that their approvals as “near lock” for 2025. These opinions were further validated in September when the SEC has cleared the way for approval of new ETFs by signing new generic listing standards.

Around that time Rex Shares and Osprey Funds have launched their joint XRP ETF– an Act 40 ETF that follows different listing standards than other crypto ETFs. The demand for the product was immediately shown, Raising $38 million on day one volume, good enough to mark the biggest debut of the year up to that point.

However, soon after, more traditional spot ETF products emerged Canary Islands capitalGreyscale, Bitwise and Franklin Templeton hit the market. Leveraged products also came onto the market in December, allowing investors to do the same double their exposure to XRP profits.

Since their launch, spot ETFs have generated nearly $1 billion in net inflows without a single day of outflows. according to data from CoinGlassfrom December 15.

RLUSD will be a billion dollar stablecoin

XRP eclipsed a major milestone in 2025, but so did Ripple Labs’ stablecoin, RLUSD.

First launched in December 2024The dollar-backed stablecoin front followed the growing trend of stablecoin products from other financial giants such as Western Union And JPMorganand the passage of the GENIUS Act, which provided regulatory clarity on the issuance and trading of fiat-backed tokens.

In the year since launch, functionality for RLUSD has expanded. That was the case in September added to Securitize’s tokenization platforma BlackRock-backed platform that now allows users to exchange stocks tokenized money market funds for RLUSD. In December the company received approval to expand payment servicesincluding RLUSD, also in Singapore.

It is used for credit card charges also thanks to a partnership with Mastercard and WebBank, the issuer of the credit card products of crypto exchange Gemini.

While RLUSD is regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services, Ripple has filed a National Bank Charter in Julyfollowing the example of USDC publisher Circle, which aims to improve the “benchmark for trust” in the stablecoin market. And it received conditional approval in December, along with other stablecoin issuers.

At the time of writing, the stablecoin has reached a market capitalization of $1.3 billion, making it the eleventh largest stablecoin in less than a year since its launch. according to data from DefiLlama.

Ripple’s buying spree

Although closely tied to

In April, the company has raised more than $1.25 billion to acquire primer brokerage Hidden Road because it aimed to better serve institutional clients on a larger scale.

Then spent another $1 billion to acquire the management company GTreasury in October, in a play that CEO Brad Garlinghouse says will reduce the friction and costs associated with legacy financial systems.

It surrounded that acquisition with two others, Paying $200 million to add Toronto-based stablecoin platform Rail, and an unknown amount wallet-as-a-service provider Palisade.

All told, Ripple’s 2025 acquisitions will maintain a similar theme, improving payment efficiency and expanding the range of financial services.

Those steps helped the company make an investment of $500 million in November, valuing it at $40 billion and cementing its place among the crypto industry’s current and future leaders.

“This investment is not only a validation of Ripple’s growth strategy and business built on the foundations of XRP, but also a clear bet on what the future of crypto will look like,” said Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple. wrote on X. “I am very proud of what we have built, and everything that is yet to come.”