XRP Ripple-Linked Payment Token and Smart Contracts Platform must demonstrate true utility beyond loyal communities as the cryptocurrency market shifts from hyped narratives to fundamentals-driven assets, Galaxy Digital founder and CEO Mike Novogratz said in a recent interview.
“Can Ripple hold up? Can Cardano hold up?” Novogratz said Friday in a conversation with Galaxy research director Alex Thorn.
He pointed out that while XRP and Cardano’s native token ADA have a resilient fan base, their on-chain activity remains relatively low.
“Charles Hoskinson, bless his soul, he kept the Cardano community going with a blockchain that people don’t really use that much,” Novogratz said. “It’s had a strong community, just like XRP. Can you keep it together as there are more and more options?”
Novogratz argued that the broader market is evolving: non-money tokens like Bitcoin will be valued like traditional businesses based on revenue, usage and measurable value.
Fintech company Ripple uses the XRP token as a bridging asset for fast and low-cost cross-border payments through its RippleNet network, with partnerships between banks and fintechs. Yet critics have long pointed out that its organic activity remains weak and does not justify XRP’s multibillion-dollar market valuation.
XRP currently holds a market capitalization of around $115 billion, ranking it the fifth largest cryptocurrency, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Cardano’s ADA is around $13-14 billion, putting it around 12th place.
The on-chain metrics underscore Novogratz’s concerns about adoption. At press time, the number of active XRP addresses was 16,703, according to data source CryptoQuant.
Cardano’s active addresses stood at over 19,000. Both numbers are significantly lower than other projects such as Solana, which typically sees millions of active addresses driven by DeFi, memes, and apps. Solana’s SOL token has a market capitalization of $72 billion, the seventh largest in the world.
Novogratz compared community tokens with emerging examples like Hyperliquid, a decentralized perpetual exchange that generates real-world revenue and burns most profits to buy back its token, creating a stock-like economy.
