Financial advisors aren't piling into XRP because they expect a quick pop, according to Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan. They're buying because they think the asset will still be around in five years, and because it plugs into things they can actually explain to clients — stablecoins, cross-currency liquidity, payments rails.
Hougan put it plainly, calling XRP "one of the Mount Rushmore assets in crypto." That framing matters coming from the CIO of an issuer that runs one of the largest XRP funds on the market.
The ETF numbers behind the pitch
XRP ETF net assets climbed 80% in the third quarter to a record $1.77 billion on September 25, and the flows have kept coming since. Last week brought roughly $76 million in net inflows — the best week in a month — stretching the streak to 11 consecutive weeks of positive flows.
Not every fund is pulling its weight. Bitwise's own XRP ETF leads the pack with $677 million in cumulative inflows, followed by Franklin's at $501 million. 21Shares is the outlier on the wrong side of the ledger, with $21.15 million in net redemptions.
Canary's XRPC added $3.96 million on Monday, which pushed cumulative inflows across all XRP ETFs to $1.79 billion. Total net assets sat at $1.68 billion, a touch below Friday's record.
A price chart that doesn't match the story
Here's the awkward part. XRP was trading around $1.50 at the time of writing, up about 2% over 24 hours and nearly 8% across the past month. It's on track for a third straight green month, following roughly 30% gains in August and 2.10% in July.
Zoom out and the picture sours. XRP is still 47% lower than a year ago and 59% below its all-time high of $3.65. The last time it strung together a longer run of monthly gains was 2023, when it climbed from September through December before an 18% drop in January 2024 broke the streak.
So the flows and the price are telling different stories. Advisors, at least per Hougan, are looking past the drawdown.
Persistence as the actual thesis
That gap — heavy inflows against a token still deep in the red on a yearly basis — is the real story. Hougan's argument isn't that XRP will moon. It's that an asset surviving a decade of regulatory pressure, lawsuits, and constant public argument has earned a place in a diversified crypto allocation.
XRPL community figure Hussein Zangana, known as Vet, made a similar point, calling the network "real" and saying it "has persisted the most amount of scrutiny any crypto has received." It's a community talking point, not an analyst note, but it tracks with how the buy-side is framing the trade.
The paperwork side
Bitwise filed an updated prospectus for its XRP fund on September 28. The fund charges a 0.34% fee and holds its coins with Coinbase Custody.
That filing is routine, but it's the kind of housekeeping that tells you an issuer expects the fund to keep growing. Fees get negotiated and custody arrangements get locked in when the money is real.
The next thing to watch is whether the 11-week inflow streak survives a month that has historically been unkind to the token. XRP's last long monthly run ended with an 18% January drop in 2024. If the streak holds through October, the advisor thesis gets a lot harder to dismiss.
