XRP Price Today (Dec. 23, 2025): XRP Trades Near $1.88 as ETF Volume, On‑Chain Milestones, and Lending Plans Fuel the Debate

XRP price today is hovering around $1.88 on December 23, 2025, down roughly 2% over the past 24 hours after trading between about $1.87 and $1.94. XRP’s market capitalization is sitting near $114 billion, keeping it among the largest cryptocurrencies even as price action remains range-bound heading into year-end.

Trading activity remains elevated across major venues, with about $2.5 billion in XRP changing hands over the last 24 hours (all exchanges combined), a sign that the market is still very much “awake”—even if the chart looks sleepy. ^[1]

So what’s driving the push-and-pull in the Ripple-linked token today? The short version: mixed technicals, fresh institutional plumbing via spot ETFs, and new narratives around the XRP Ledger’s real-world usage and upcoming lending functionality.

Today’s XRP news cycle: the key headlines from Dec. 23, 2025

Several distinct XRP narratives are competing for attention on Dec. 23:

Social sentiment has flipped negative after a long stretch of optimism, with some analysts framing that pessimism as a potential contrarian signal. ^[2]
A former BlackRock vice president pointed to over $1B in XRP ETF trading volume, arguing that institutional participation may be stronger than price action suggests. ^[3]
The XRP Ledger has reportedly surpassed 4 billion transactions, and Ripple’s CTO is being cited emphasizing usage and liquidity over short-term price as adoption measures. ^[4]
Market commentary highlighted XRP re-testing a key support zone while attention grows around an XRPL lending protocol designed for institutional-style credit markets. ^[5]

Those threads—sentiment, institutional access, real-world usage, and technical levels—pretty much explain the “why” behind XRP’s indecision today.

XRP price today: why $1.90 matters so much right now

XRP has spent the day orbiting the $1.90 area, with traders watching it as a psychological and technical pivot. Live pricing has XRP around $1.88, and the day’s range has been relatively tight, reinforcing the idea that the market is in “wait-and-see mode.”

Zooming out, some daily datasets also frame XRP as drifting lower into late December: one widely followed reference series shows XRP at ~$1.902 for Dec. 23 (midnight UTC pricing), down from ~$1.923 the day before. (That’s not “live,” but it’s useful context for the broader trend.) ^[6]

In other words: XRP isn’t crashing today—but it also isn’t convincingly recovering. The market is stuck between “buyers defend support” and “sellers fade rallies.”

The sentiment shift: XRP community mood turns darker

One of the more notable Dec. 23 narratives is the sudden turn in XRP social sentiment. According to CCN, online chatter around XRP has shifted toward frustration and pessimism as the token has “ground lower,” with XRP cited near $1.88 and described as more than 50% below its all-time high (around $3.8). ^[7]

Historically, extreme negativity can sometimes appear near local bottoms—but it can also reflect genuine capitulation before further downside. The important point for readers (and for anyone tempted to treat vibes as data): sentiment is a lagging indicator until it isn’t. Today’s mood shift is real; what it predicts is not guaranteed.

ETF spotlight: “institutional interest” vs. stubborn price action

A weird 2025 reality is that institutional rails can strengthen while spot prices stall—and XRP is a clean example of that tension.

What’s in the news today about XRP ETFs

On Dec. 23, FX Leaders highlighted comments from a former BlackRock vice president pointing to an XRP ETF surpassing $1 billion in trading volume, using that as evidence that participation may be healthier than the chart implies. ^[8]

The bigger context: U.S. spot XRP ETFs launched in November

This year also brought a structural shift for XRP access in the U.S.:

Canary Capital launched what ETF industry coverage described as the first U.S. spot XRP ETF (ticker XRPC) on Nov. 13, 2025. ^[9]
Bitwise announced its Bitwise XRP ETF would begin trading on Nov. 20, 2025 under ticker XRP on NYSE. ^[10]
Franklin Templeton announced the launch of its Franklin XRP ETF (XRPZ) on Nov. 24, 2025. ^[11]

So even if XRP price today looks muted, the market structure around XRP has changed dramatically versus prior years—more regulated access, more traditional brokerage pathways, and more “ETF-style” flow narratives.

Flows still look sticky

Recent market analysis citing SoSoValue data has put cumulative spot XRP ETF inflows around ~$1.07B with net assets averaging around ~$1.21B (figures reported in the last week, not necessarily a Dec. 23 live tick). ^[12]

That doesn’t guarantee price upside—but it does suggest that, structurally, XRP is no longer relying only on crypto-native demand.

XRPL hits 4 billion transactions: “utility” returns to center stage

Another Dec. 23 headline has nothing to do with candlesticks and everything to do with narrative warfare: what is XRP actually “for”?

Coinpaper reported that the XRP Ledger has surpassed 4 billion transactions, framing it as evidence of fast, low-fee settlement at scale, and cited Ripple CTO David Schwartz emphasizing usage, liquidity, and integration as better adoption signals than short-term price movement. ^[13]

This kind of story tends to land especially hard when price action is dull—because it offers an alternate scoreboard. When markets are trending, people watch price. When markets are chopping, people go looking for “fundamentals.”

The XRPL lending protocol narrative: institutional-style credit comes on-chain

A separate (and very 2026-coded) story showing up alongside today’s price action is about lending on the XRP Ledger—specifically a design that’s being framed as more institution-friendly than typical DeFi lending.

An XRPL-focused market commentary described Ripple engineer Ed Hennis sharing details of a forthcoming XRPL lending protocol aimed at enabling “institutional-grade” yield opportunities, with a structure built around more traditional credit concepts rather than variable-rate pooled models. ^[14]

A post attributed to Edward Hennis on X describes the concept as a protocol-native system for:

fixed-term
fixed-rate
underwritten credit ^[15]

If that direction materializes, it would represent a strategic attempt to position XRPL not just as a payments rail, but as a regulated-flavored on-chain credit venue. That’s a big “if” (shipping matters more than teasing), but it’s one reason XRP news today reads more like finance infrastructure coverage than classic altcoin hype.

Regulation backdrop: the SEC case is no longer the daily weight

One major overhang that defined XRP for years—the SEC’s lawsuit—has largely moved into the “historical context” folder.

Reuters reported earlier in 2025 that the SEC had ended its lawsuit against Ripple, with Ripple set to pay a $125 million fine, and both sides dropping appeals—effectively closing a landmark enforcement chapter that began in 2020. ^[16]

That doesn’t mean XRP is regulation-proof (nothing is), but it does change how institutions can talk about exposure, product design, and custody without every conversation looping back to “but what about the lawsuit?”

Macro and institutional “risk-on/risk-off” still matter for XRP price today

Even if XRP has unique catalysts, it still trades inside the larger crypto mood ring.

On the institutional adoption front, Reuters reported today that JPMorgan is exploring offering crypto trading to institutional clients (per a Bloomberg report cited by Reuters), reflecting how major banks continue to test the boundaries of client demand and regulatory comfort. ^[17]

When TradFi firms expand crypto offerings, it often supports the long-term “institutionalization” thesis—but it doesn’t automatically flip the short-term switch for any single token.

What to watch next for XRP

XRP price today is giving traders a very classic late-year setup: tight range + loud headlines. Here’s what matters next, without pretending anyone has a crystal ball:

1) The $1.90 support zone and $2.00 resistance
Multiple market commentaries have emphasized the $1.90 area as a key pivot and $2.00 as a near-term hurdle. If XRP can’t reclaim those levels convincingly, downside scenarios remain on the table in technical outlooks. ^[18]

2) Whether ETF activity translates into sustained spot demand
Dec. 23’s ETF-volume discussion reinforces that “big money access” is here. The open question is timing: will flows remain steady enough—and broad enough—to matter more than macro risk sentiment? ^[19]

3) Whether the lending protocol becomes real product
Institutional credit is not a vibe; it’s paperwork, risk controls, and market structure. If XRPL’s lending initiative progresses from posts to production-grade primitives, that could reshape how XRP is used beyond payments narratives. ^[20]

4) Sentiment extremes
Today’s negative sentiment shift is notable, but not magical. If pessimism deepens while price stabilizes, contrarian arguments get louder. If pessimism deepens and price breaks support, momentum narratives take over. ^[21]

Bottom line

XRP price today (Dec. 23, 2025) is stuck near $1.88, with traders watching whether the token can defend the $1.90 area and re-test $2.00 amid mixed technical signals.

But the bigger story in today’s news cycle is that XRP is increasingly being discussed like financial infrastructure—ETFs with meaningful volume, a ledger boasting billions of transactions, and early signals that XRPL wants to support more institution-style credit markets. ^[22]

That combination—sideways price, forward-moving plumbing—is exactly the kind of tension that sets up the next decisive move. Whether that move is up or down will depend less on hot takes and more on flows, liquidity, and broader risk appetite across crypto.