Recently, I noticed an interesting phenomenon: more and more people in the XRP community are discussing one thing—the market may be seriously undervaluing the growth potential of decentralized finance on the XRPL.

YouTuber Zach Rector recently pointed out that although everyone knows XRP is famous for fast, low-cost payments, the DeFi infrastructure quietly building on XRPL is actually quite mature, and the market hasn't fully reflected this in its valuation. I looked at the current data: XRP is now priced at $1.44, with a 24-hour increase of 1.41%, and a circulating market cap of $88.54 billion, but from a DeFi perspective, this valuation still seems to have room for imagination.

Speaking of XRPL’s DeFi advantages, what attracts me most is its native design. Unlike other blockchains that rely on external smart contracts, XRPL’s decentralized exchange is built-in from the ground up and has been operating since 2012. What does this mean? It means fewer attack surfaces, higher reliability, and this is a big plus for institutional investors.

Even more interesting is that DeFi development on XRPL has gone beyond simple trading. The XLS-66 proposal is advancing native fixed-term lending features, allowing borrowing and lending directly at the protocol layer without over-collateralization or smart contracts. Meanwhile, cross-chain wrapped versions like wXRP and FXRP enable XRP to flow within other ecosystems, and it’s said that over 94 million XRP have already been bridged across chains.

Last year, Ondo Finance launched a tokenized US Treasury fund product on XRPL, supported by BUIDL from BlackRock. More and more cases like this show that XRPL is becoming a truly compliant, yield-generating on-chain financial hub.

Top validator Vet mentioned that 2026 could be a turning point for XRPL’s decentralized finance. It sounds a bit optimistic, but considering how mature the infrastructure already is and the rising demand for secure DeFi, this judgment isn’t far-fetched.

My feeling is that if this momentum continues, XRPL’s DeFi story could really become a key factor in the market re-evaluating XRP. Of course, any investment decision should be made with your own research—this is just sharing an observation.