XRP and XLM: Are You Holding the Same Bet Twice?

XRP and Stellar (XLM) share a founder, Jed McCaleb, and the same basic promise: moving money as easily as sending an email. According to a Bullrunners video, the two coins have also often risen and fallen together in big market weeks, which means holding both may not spread risk the way many holders assume.

That matters if you hold XRP and added XLM as a second coin or a safety net. If both move in the same direction at the same time, a crash hits twice instead of once. The video walks through the shared history, the real differences between the two networks, and three decisions it suggests holders make before the next big move.

How are XRP and Stellar connected?

XRP and Stellar are connected through Jed McCaleb, who helped build the XRP Ledger and then left to create Stellar. According to the video, McCaleb and Chris Larsen set up a company called OpenCoin in 2012, which later became Ripple, and McCaleb helped build the ledger itself. By 2013 he had fallen out with the person he brought in to run the company and did not like where it was going, so he left. On July 31, 2014, he unveiled Stellar.

The sales pitch for both coins sounded almost identical. In a 2018 clip, Larsen describes combining XRP with Interledger Protocol (ILP) to let people send as little as 50 cents across borders. Two years earlier, McCaleb was pitching Stellar with the same example: you should be able to send 50 cents to somebody in Mexico the same way you can send an email.

The video also highlights a detail few holders know. In a 2016 interview McCaleb said that when Stellar distributed its coins, 1% was withheld for XRP holders, and in March 2025 he said on X that XRP holders were given the ability to swap into Stellar. For a longer comparison of the two networks, see Bullrunners’ guide to how XRP and Stellar differ.

Do XRP and XLM prices move together?

In the biggest weeks covered in the video, XRP and XLM prices moved together. The video points to three moments:

Period	What XRP did	What XLM did
January to December 2018	Topped in the same week as XLM, then lost roughly 90% by December	Topped in the same week as XRP, then lost roughly 90% by December
After the July 13, 2023 court ruling	Up around 60% ten days later, per CoinTelegraph	Up around 60%, despite not being part of the case
November 2024	Nearly quadrupled in the month	Rose more than five times over

The July 2023 example stands out. A judge in New York ruled that XRP sold on exchanges was not sold as a security. XLM had nothing to do with that case, yet it rose alongside XRP. A week later, CoinDesk reported that XRP and Stellar were outperforming a sluggish Bitcoin and other altcoins.

The video’s point is simple: if two coins rise and fall in the same week, you hold one bet, not two. Anyone who held both through 2018 took the same loss twice.

The video contrasts that with how larger investors behaved. In a January 2026 CNBC clip, an anchor said many people bought into XRP ETFs during the weak fourth quarter, the opposite of what happened with spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs. In the video’s framing, they bought more of one coin on the dip rather than adding a second coin and calling it diversification.

What did Jed McCaleb say about Ripple?

Jed McCaleb criticised Ripple publicly after he left. In a 2018 CNBC interview he said Ripple’s consensus design made it hard for anyone outside Ripple to run nodes, that Ripple ran the majority of them, and that the result was “no better than Swift or PayPal.” In a 2016 interview he said Ripple seemed to be pivoting to become “Swift 2.0,” which he said Stellar was not doing. Swift is the messaging network banks use to send money across borders.

The video presents the other side as well. It says the XRP Ledger’s own site now lists Ripple as running just one of 35 validators on its default list. Validators are the computers that agree on which payments go through. The video concludes that McCaleb’s 2018 point has aged. For background, see Bullrunners’ explainer on XRP Ledger validators and the UNL.

McCaleb’s own XRP ties ended long ago. According to the video, Ripple reported in July 2022 that his wallet, nicknamed the “Taco Stand”, had sold the last of about 9 billion coins. Bullrunners covers that in more detail in how McCaleb sold his XRP.

Are XRP and Stellar built the same way?

No. XRP and Stellar started from the same code but no longer share any, according to McCaleb. In the 2016 interview he said, “We forked the Ripple codebase,” meaning Stellar began as a copy. Then in December 2014 Stellar’s network split in two for a time. Stellar’s chief scientist, Stanford professor David Mazières, blamed the way the network agreed on payments and wrote a new method from scratch. Stellar moved onto it in November 2015.

Speaking at Stellar’s own conference, McCaleb said he did not know if the two would converge: “It sounds the same on the surface, but I think we’re trying to do fairly different things.”

Who are Ripple and Stellar each targeting?

Ripple has focused on banks and payment providers, while Stellar has focused more on everyday senders. The video describes this as one founder, two ledgers: one aimed at the banks, the other at everyone else.

On Stellar’s side, the head of its foundation told a US Senate committee in 2022 that an immigrant farm worker could send money home without high fees or long waits, through MoneyGram locations. MoneyGram, once one of Ripple’s best-known partners, wound down its Ripple deal in March 2021 and later built its cash service on Stellar.

On Ripple’s side, Ripple’s chief executive said two years after McCaleb’s “Swift 2.0” comment that Ripple had well over 100 customers, ranging from some of the biggest banks in the world to payment providers.

The lines are blurring. According to the video:

1. In September 2025, CoinDesk reported that partners like MoneyGram and PayPal showed Stellar being used for remittances and tokenized assets.
2. On December 12, 2025, the OCC, the regulator for US national banks, gave Ripple National Trust Bank conditional approval.
3. In May 2026, the DTCC, the firm behind settlement of US share trades, announced plans to bring assets it holds onto Stellar.
4. In September 2026, US Bank began moving dollars between its own entities across borders on Stellar.

What does the Ripple bank approval mean, and when is the deadline?

The OCC’s approval of Ripple National Trust Bank is conditional, not final. The video suggests searching “OCC Ripple National Trust Bank” to see the status on the regulator’s own site. It says the approval was still conditional at the time of recording.

Under OCC rules, the video says, a bank with this kind of approval gets 18 months to open unless the regulator grants more time. Counting from December 12, 2025, that points to June 2027. The host says there is a real chance the bank opens, even if it takes longer than people want. That is the host’s view, not a certainty. Bullrunners has a separate explainer on what the OCC charter letter actually says.

A simple check and three decisions for holders

The video’s free check takes a minute. Open a charting app, put XRP and XLM on the same chart, and look back at January 2018. If both peaked in the same week and fell together, you can judge whether XLM is a second bet or the same one in a different form.

The host’s overall take is that both camps are half right. The coins share a founder, a pitch and a price history, so they are closer than people who would never swap admit. But they were built for different customers, so they are further apart than the “twins” crowd thinks.

The video then sets out three decisions to make while the market is quiet:

1. Where do your coins sit? On an exchange, or in a wallet where you hold the keys.
2. Are your coins doing anything while you wait? Or are they simply sitting there.
3. When would you get out, and when would you get back in? Decide this before the next big run, not in the middle of it.

The host’s reasoning is that if you don’t decide in advance, a headline ends up deciding for you on the day. Waiting is fine, the video says, as long as you have already decided when you would act.

What to watch next

The date the video flags is June 2027, the end of the 18-month window for Ripple National Trust Bank to open, unless the OCC extends it. Check the OCC’s site for any change in status. On the Stellar side, watch whether the DTCC plans and US Bank’s use of the network grow. And the next time XRP has a big week, check whether XLM moves with it. That tells you more about your own diversification than any headline.