An analysis that tokenisation of real-world assets on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) has surpassed $3.6 billion in just five months is helping spread a bullish view again on XRP's long-term value. The market is watching whether XRPL can establish itself as a distribution infrastructure for traditional financial assets beyond a simple payments network.

On May 16 local time, blockchain outlet The Crypto Basic reported that XRP community educator X Finance Bull said the market still underestimates XRP's long-term potential, citing XRPL's RWA growth.

The main driver is XRPL's growing presence in the RWA market. X Finance Bull cited RWA.xyz data and said XRPL rose 63 percent on the platform's RWA rankings over the past 30 days. He said XRPL absorbed more than $3.6 billion in tokenised real-world asset value in just five months, and mentioned the possibility that XRP could reach double digits over the long term if adoption keeps expanding.

At the centre of the outlook is expectations of rising institutional demand. RWA refers to traditional financial assets such as bonds, funds, real estate and commodities that are tokenised into forms that can be traded on a blockchain. XRP supporters see this market as potentially one of the crypto industry's key growth areas over the next 10 years.

Competition in XRPL's ranking is also drawing attention. X Finance Bull said that as Ripple and the XRPL Foundation push on-chain transfers of traditional financial assets, XRPL is nearing a stage where it could overtake BNB in the RWA market rankings.

He stressed that assets worth trillions of dollars could be tokenised on XRPL over the long term, and that if this trend materialises it could have a major impact on how XRP is valued.

Even so, the gap remains large when looking only at the current market size. The overall market for tokenised assets based on cryptocurrencies exceeds $350 billion, while assets based on XRPL remain at about $3.6 billion. That means XRPL's share of the overall market is still limited even if its growth rate is fast.

Market reaction led to expectations and comparisons. X Finance Bull compared current scepticism around XRP with early assessments of bitcoin. He said bitcoin faced criticism in 2011 that it would not surpass $100, but later reached an all-time high of about $126,000 in 2025.

The comparison was linked to his argument that doubts in the market that XRP can reach $10 could also weaken as adoption expands. "Just watch. XRP will surprise the market," he said, arguing the current price could still be below the value that could be formed over the long term.

XRPL's RWA expansion is also showing up in tokenised U.S. Treasuries. Evernorth data in April showed the amount of tokenised U.S. Treasuries on XRPL surged to $418 million from $50 million last year, about an eightfold increase. OpenEden, Ondo Finance and Zeconomy are leading tokenised U.S. Treasury businesses on the network.

An assessment is also emerging that institutions' use cases are becoming more concrete. Evernorth analysed that the increase in issuance and transfer activity shows institutions are testing XRPL as a scalable payments and distribution infrastructure for tokenised assets.

The market is increasingly weighing not just expectations of higher prices but whether XRPL can establish itself as an actual distribution network for traditional financial assets, another analysis said.