Why XRP Holders Aren't Paid By Ripple's Wins (RLUSD, LMAX, BNY)

XRP holders have watched Ripple win its lawsuit, US funds buy more than $1 billion of XRP, and Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin move into major institutions, yet the price hasn’t followed. The new Bullrunners video, hosted by Nick Anderson, argues the reason is simple: almost every one of those wins pays the companies using Ripple’s products, not people holding the coin.

That matters for anyone holding XRP and waiting. If the news was never going to pay holders directly, waiting for the next headline is not a plan. The video walks through what Ripple actually shipped, who gets paid when it’s used, and what a holder can do about it without selling their core position.

Is regulation still holding XRP back?

Not anymore, according to the video. The SEC case against Ripple is over, the video’s research counts hundreds of financial institutions using or piloting Ripple’s technology, and Ripple has been licensed to operate under Europe’s crypto framework. Regulatory fog was a real answer once, but the video says it is no longer what stands between XRP and its price.

The video also rejects two other popular explanations:

Explanation	What the video says
“Regulation is the blocker”	The lawsuit is behind Ripple, and it holds a European license
“Nobody is buying XRP”	US funds that must buy real XRP have pulled in more than $1 billion since launch
“Whales are dumping on you”	On-chain data shows big holders both adding and selling in the same quarter. Accumulation shows conviction, not price

The video’s point is that the ETF money arrived exactly as people hoped, and it still didn’t change holders’ positions. Those funds earn fees on the XRP they hold, which is a different thing from paying holders. Bullrunners covered this gap earlier in why ETF inflows and the XRP price move apart.

What did Ripple actually ship?

Ripple built two pieces that work together. The first is Ripple Mint, a platform where institutions can mint, redeem and manage RLUSD, Ripple’s US dollar stablecoin, through a dashboard or an API. It settles across chains and anchors back to the XRP Ledger.

The second is Ripple’s investment in Notabene, a company that runs the identity and screening layer around crypto payments. Before a bank moves money, it has to show a regulator who is sending, who is receiving, and that neither is on a sanctions list. The video argues that this permission step, not the speed of the pipes, is why payments still take 3 to 5 days. Notabene lets two institutions check each other and screen a transaction before money moves. According to the video, its network was reported to carry trillions of dollars a year across more than 100 jurisdictions when Ripple invested.

The honest part, as the host puts it: as these products are described today, nothing in that pipeline requires XRP. An institution can mint RLUSD, send it through the compliance network and settle abroad without touching the coin. The video is clear that this doesn’t prove XRP is finished. It means XRP now has a competitor for the bridge-asset role, and Ripple built it.

Where is RLUSD used, and how big is it?

RLUSD launched on both Ethereum and the XRP Ledger, and the two chains do different jobs. On the XRP Ledger, Ripple mints RLUSD in large blocks for settlements and burns most of it when someone cashes out, so net growth stays close to zero. On Ethereum, more of it gets minted and stays. The video sums it up as: the XRP Ledger is the corridor, and Ethereum is where the money parks.

Scale matters too. According to the video, all RLUSD across both chains is under 1% of the stablecoin market, and Tether’s USDT alone is dozens of times larger. So the online argument over which chain is “winning” RLUSD is happening inside a very small slice of the market. For more on how the two assets differ, see how RLUSD’s growth compares with the XRP price.

What did LMAX and BNY do with RLUSD?

Both used the stablecoin, not XRP. In January 2026, according to the video, Ripple confirmed financing of about $150 million to LMAX, an institutional trading venue with liquidity from dozens of large banks. RLUSD became core collateral across that marketplace, usable for margin and settlement. The video explains why that matters: whatever a venue accepts as collateral sits under every trade, which makes it the most-used asset there. Ripple had that chance and chose the dollar.

The second example involves BNY, the world’s largest custodian bank. According to the report the video cites, BNY ran a test trade after Fedwire had closed for the day, using stablecoin reserves, with RLUSD among them. Fedwire, the US settlement system, moves about $4 to $5 trillion a day but shuts in the evening. The treasuries in that test were not tokenized yet. The video says BNY is testing tokenized treasuries by the end of 2026, with round-the-clock settlement targeted for 2027.

Does Ripple’s success pay XRP holders?

No. Ripple is a private company. It sells XRP from escrow and uses the money to build and buy businesses, such as Hidden Road, a custody business and a New York trust company that issues RLUSD. According to the video, Ripple raised $500 million at a $40 billion valuation in November 2025, led by Fortress and Citadel Securities.

XRP holders own none of that. They have no equity, no profit share, no dividend and no vote. The host notes this is exactly what Ripple argued in its case against the SEC. So when a headline says “Ripple wins”, the video’s advice is to remember that holders aren’t part of that deal.

What is the core and satellite plan?

The video splits the market into two sides. The price side pays you when other people decide your asset is worth more, which is out of your control. The volume side pays when something is actually used, through interest, trading fees or settlements. The mistake, according to the video, is putting an entire net worth on one side.

The plan has three moves:

1. Keep the core untouched. Size it as the amount you could watch fall 80 to 90% without it changing your life. Keep it in a hardware wallet. It isn’t bridged, wrapped or left on an exchange. Bullrunners has a guide on buying a hardware wallet safely.
2. Put only the satellite to work, where the volume is. The video names four routes: borrowing against cbXRP on Morpho (you keep the coins but carry liquidation risk), lending cbXRP on Moonwell (rates depend on borrowing demand), providing liquidity in wrapped XRP pools (with impermanent loss), and minting FXRP on Flare. It also mentions centralized desks such as Doppler Finance, which it says are not DeFi and carry single-company risk.
3. Ask where the money comes from. If the payment comes from someone using something, it’s a volume-side position. If it only pays when someone buys, it’s the same bet in a different wrapper. The video suggests bringing volume-side earnings back into the core.

When the video tested Flare, it found much of the reward is paid as locked Flare (rFLR), so the dashboard number isn’t liquid on the day it lands. For a full list of risks, see the Bullrunners XRP lending and yield risk checklist.

What mistakes does the video warn about?

Two. The first is hearing all of this as a reason to sell XRP. The video says the opposite: the core is what keeps a bad satellite decision from taking you out of the market. The second is moving everything at once and chasing the biggest yield number. The highest advertised rates usually sit on the smallest pools, and the rate drops as more money arrives.

The video’s advice is to start with an amount you could lose without losing sleep, and to test the exit before you scale up.

What to check next

Every protocol named in the video was live when it was recorded, but rates and platforms change. Before using any of them, check that the protocol still exists, what it pays you in, when you can withdraw, and who holds the real XRP behind any wrapped token. Then keep watching where liquidity actually goes, because that is something you can see happen rather than guess.