Key Takeaways:
XRP and Stellar are both built to solve the same problem — slow, expensive cross-border payments routed through correspondent banks. In 2026, Wall Street's largest clearinghouse has placed its bets on each, and the two networks are heading in different directions.
Ripple's On-Demand Liquidity service processed more than $15 billion in cross-border payments in 2024, a 32 percent annual increase, with cumulative volume crossing $95 billion as of January 2026, according to company data. The network now spans more than 70 currency corridors covering an estimated 80 percent of major global remittance routes, with the heaviest volume running through Japan, the Philippines and Mexico.
"The DTCC patent issued in May 2025 identified both the XRP Ledger and Stellar among compatible blockchain networks for its cross-ledger framework, but the two are designed for different use cases," the patent filing states. "XRP is designed for large-scale institutional settlement, while Stellar is designed for low-cost transactions, fiat-to-blockchain conversions and stablecoins."
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, which oversees $114 trillion in US capital market assets, announced on May 27 that it will enable tokenization of DTC-custodied assets on the Stellar network, with availability targeted for the first half of 2027. The initiative will initially focus on Russell 1000 equities, major index ETFs and US Treasuries — marking the first time DTC-custodied securities will live on a public blockchain. XLM surged 28 percent across the trading day following the announcement, while the broader crypto market fell sharply the same day.
XRP's Volume Story Has a Token Demand Problem
Ripple's ODL service uses XRP as a bridge currency between two fiat currencies, settling cross-border payments in three to five seconds. Over 300 financial institutions use RippleNet infrastructure, but only about 40 percent are actively settling in XRP — the rest use Ripple's messaging rails without any XRP exposure.
A pilot on May 6 illustrated the tension. JPMorgan, Mastercard, Ondo Finance and Ripple cleared a cross-border tokenized US Treasury trade on the XRP Ledger in under five seconds. The settlement ran through RLUSD, Ripple's dollar stablecoin, while XRP only covered minimal network fees of around $0.00001 per transaction. RLUSD adoption strengthens Ripple's business case but does not directly create XRP demand the way ODL does.
The CLARITY Act, which passed the Senate Banking Committee on May 14, would permanently write XRP's commodity classification into federal law. The March 17 SEC-CFTC interpretive ruling already gave XRP commodity status, but an agency ruling can be reversed by the next administration. XRP ETFs have accumulated $1.41 billion in cumulative inflows.
Stellar's DTCC Endorsement Is a Long-Term Bet
Stellar processed $5.5 billion in payment volume in Q1 2026, a 72 percent increase compared with the same period last year, according to network data. Its tokenized real-world asset value grew from $796 million at the end of 2025 to more than $2 billion by mid-April.
The DTCC partnership is the largest single institutional endorsement any crypto network has received in 2026. But production testing does not begin until July, and broader availability is not targeted until 2027. The token demand implications are still months away.
XRP is winning the commercial cross-border payments race on volume and institutional depth today, while Stellar is winning the tokenized securities infrastructure race after securing the biggest institutional endorsement of the year. The question for investors is which catalyst arrives first — the CLARITY Act moving through the full Senate, or Stellar's July production testing running smoothly enough to keep the October commercial launch on schedule.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
