XRP closed Q1 2026 as the fourth largest non-stablecoin crypto asset by market cap behind BTC, ETH, and BNB. XRP’s utility also continued to grow, both directly and indirectly, as XRPL’s feature set expands, particularly for institutional DeFi use cases such as tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), stablecoins, and decentralized liquidity. The increased utility is both direct, via new features like lending and borrowing XRP on the upcoming lending protocol, and indirect, with more operations using XRP from increased institutional adoption. In Q1 2026, average daily transactions increased 35.3% QoQ from 1.83 million to 2.48 million. RLUSD and RWA market cap growth on the XRPL serve as markers of that increased utility. Ripple’s USD-pegged stablecoin, RLUSD, closed Q1 2026 with a market cap of $340.3 million on the XRPL (+45% QoQ), making it the network’s largest stablecoin. Additionally, closed Q1 2026 with a real-world asset (RWA) market cap of $2.25 billion (+124.1% QoQ), making it the seventh largest network by RWA market cap. As of publication, the XRPL now ranks fourth. Finally, U.S. spot XRP ETFs closed Q1 2026 collectively holding 775.4 million XRP (1.26% of the circulating supply), up 1.9% QoQ, with XRP held peaking at 810.2 million XRP on March 3, 2026. As the U.S. spot XRP market continues to mature the market share among ETF providers should move towards a similar dynamic found with U.S. spot BTC and ETH ETFs where there is one dominant market leader, followed by two to three smaller competitors, and then a longer tail of ETFs, each with 5% or less market share. With features for regulatory-compliant institutional DeFi on the XRPL continuing to be enabled, XRP is positioned for increasing use throughout 2026 as institutional adoption scales.