The XRP spot exchange-traded fund market is expanding rapidly, but no single fund has yet surpassed $1 billion, the article said.

Blockchain media outlet U.Today reported on Aug. 30 that asset manager Bitwise's Solana staking ETF, BSOL, exceeded $1 billion in assets under management 10 months after launch, but XRP spot ETFs have not reached the same stage.

The discussion began with the pace of growth in Solana spot ETFs. BSOL attracted funds by offering about 5.8 percent a year in returns through direct staking within a regulated ETF. Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley (헌터 호슬리) mentioned the performance on X, formerly Twitter, and said that so far only Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana have spot crypto ETFs that exceed $1 billion.

When criticism emerged that it was biased to leave out XRP, Horsley immediately pushed back. "It's not biased. It's a fact that there is no $1 billion XRP spot ETF yet," he replied. It underscored that the assets under management of individual products matter more than the overall market size.

Structural differences help explain why XRP spot ETFs are not keeping the same pace. Unlike Solana, the XRP Ledger has no native staking function. XRP was issued in full from the beginning, meaning the blockchain itself cannot create new tokens for staking rewards. As a result, XRP spot ETFs currently rely only on spot demand.

An alternative being discussed is an XRPL lending protocol. But that feature is currently undergoing validator voting, so it is not yet reflected in ETF product structures. At this stage, inflows into XRP spot ETFs are ultimately driven by pure spot investment demand.

Investment demand is not small. By Sosovalue estimates, net assets in XRP spot ETFs total $1.44 billion, and cumulative inflows amount to $1.66 billion. They have already gathered funds at a level near the top of the market, but the lack of an income-generating structure is limiting the expansion of individual funds.

For now, the Bitwise XRP spot ETF leads the market. The product has a 44 percent market share and $632.03 million in assets under management. Franklin Templeton's XRPZ follows with $411.39 million, and Canary's WAXRP has $234.36 million. The remainder is spread across products from 21Shares and Grayscale.

Institutional inflows are also continuing. Recent 13F filings showed an expansion in U.S. institutional investors' allocation to crypto ETFs. Still, Bitwise's single XRP fund would need about $368.0 million more in net assets to reach $1 billion at current levels.

Horsley drew a line under the numbers debate while also laying out XRP's challenge. The Solana case showed that staking-based products can grow faster than products that provide only spot exposure. That means whether XRP spot ETFs can exceed $1 billion on an individual-fund basis will depend on how long-term investors' inflows continue.

"I'm not! There's no $1B XRP ETF yet!"