Bitwise launches XRP ETF despite a 25% Q4 slide – Smart bet or mistimed risk?

Key Takeaways

Why is Bitwise launching the XRP ETF strategic?

It’s a long-term bet on XRPL’s infrastructure, not short-term XRP price moves, highlighting institutional confidence despite market pullbacks.

Can Ripple replicate BTC-style ETF success?

Unlikely in the short term, given the risk-off market, Ripple’s weak price action, and muted ETF-driven rallies so far.

Bitwise has officially launched Ripple’s XRP Spot ETF. 

For context, the fund will charge a management fee of 0.34%. However, the first month is free for the first $500 million in assets.

This means early investors can join for free as long as total assets remain under $500 million.

XRPL positioned as a long-term payments play

Strategically, however, the story goes much deeper.

In its official announcement, Bitwise highlighted how XRPL is integrating into the payments market, aiming to hit $250 trillion in value by 2027.

“The Bitwise XRP ETF is set to begin trading on NYSE tomorrow with the ticker $XRP. Here’s why XRP is interesting: It’s going after a massive $250T cross-border payments opportunity.”

In essence, this launch is a long-term bet on XRPL. 

Bitwise pointed out it’s the third-largest L1 blockchain, able to settle payments in 3-5 seconds for just a fraction of a cent, and has handled over 4 billion transactions with an average daily volume of $1.9 billion.

Notably, this marks Bitwise’s second big 2025 bet.

The Solana [SOL] ETF has already attracted $223 million in just two weeks, reflecting the firm’s confidence in real-world blockchain use cases.

The question now is, can Ripple [XRP] replicate the success of other ETFs?

XRP diverges from other ETF performance

This season hasn’t seen an ETF launch frenzy. 

SOL’s first ETF attracted nearly $500 million in inflows, yet its price hasn’t held. Solana is still the quarter’s weakest performer, down 30%+.

XRP isn’t far behind, down 25% in Q4 amid broad risk-off sentiment. 

Against this backdrop, Bitwise’s move appears more like a strategic bet on the XRPL network and its infrastructure rather than XRP’s short-term price action.

However, XRPL itself hasn’t shown meaningful bullish momentum.

Source: DeFiLlama

On the DeFi side, XRPL has lost roughly $50 million from its TVL since its end-July peak of $120 million. This signals a notable pullback in network participation, despite ongoing institutional interest in the XRP ETF.

In essence, ETF launches haven’t sparked a rally, marking a clear divergence. For comparison, the Bitcoin [BTC] ETF launch in Q1 2024 triggered an 80%+ BTC rally to its then all-time high of $73,000.

Given this divergence, replicating a BTC-style ETF success is difficult for XRP, especially with Bitwise’s launch coinciding with a risk-off market and XRP’s own weak price action, making it a strategic but risky bet.