XRP Ledger Overtakes Ethereum as Leader in Tokenizing Commodities

XRP Ledger beats Ethereum in commodity tokenization growth, capturing $2.2B in year-to-date inflows.

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A leadership change has taken place in the most tangible segment of the real-world asset (RWA) tokenization market. XRP Ledger (XRPL), long viewed primarily as a network for cross-border interbank settlements, has officially overtaken Ethereum in the growth of tokenized commodity market capitalization.

Joint data from analytics platforms Token Terminal and RWA Foundation for October 2026 recorded this tectonic shift: since the start of the year, net capital inflows into tokenized commodities on XRPL totaled $2.2 billion. Ethereum attracted $1.6 billion over the same period, moving into second place.

Other major L1 networks fell well behind the market leaders: Avalanche ranked third with $334.5 million, followed by BNB Chain with $57.5 million.

The shift in leadership is driven by fundamental differences in the networks’ architecture. Unlike Ethereum, where issuing assets involves unpredictable gas costs and requires developers to write complex smart contracts, XRP Ledger lets users tokenize real-world assets at the protocol level. Its built-in IOU mechanism reduces transaction costs to fractions of a cent, while settlement takes just 3–5 seconds.

The main driver that enabled XRPL to overtake Ethereum was the energy sector. The largest share of liquidity came from the launch of tokenized electricity-generation contracts, JMWH, by Latin American company Justoken.

According to on-chain data from RWA.xyz as of October 5, 2026, XRPL’s rise to the top triggered a sharp increase in activity across the network:

Alongside the commodities market, major players from adjacent RWA sectors are beginning to adopt XRPL infrastructure. The ecosystem now includes investment fund Franklin Templeton ($48.3 million), platform Ondo Finance ($187.5 million), and Middle Eastern developer DAMAC, which tokenized pools of ownership stakes in premium Dubai real estate projects Park Ridge Tower, Prive, and J One.

Ethereum retains global dominance in the total value of RWA assets locked, primarily thanks to U.S. government bonds. But in physical goods and commodities, industrial capital has shown a clear preference for Ripple-backed technology.