BlackRock, which manages roughly $15 trillion, still has no plans to launch a spot XRP ETF, a position it has held since August 2025. Seven rival spot XRP ETFs already hold about $1.77 billion in assets, but a Motley Fool analysis argues BlackRock's continued absence is a bearish signal for the token.
BlackRock has never filed an application with the SEC for a spot XRP ETF, even though seven rival spot XRP ETFs already trade in the market. The firm first said in August 2025, after Ripple's lawsuit with the SEC was resolved, that it had no plans for either an XRP or a Solana ETF, and it has held that position through late September 2026.
What BlackRock says it's waiting for
In September 2025, BlackRock's head of digital assets, Robbie Mitchnick, laid out a five-factor framework the firm uses to evaluate new crypto ETFs: client demand, market value, liquidity, maturity and portfolio fit. Mitchnick ranked client demand as the most important of the five. By that standard, BlackRock appears to view XRP as falling short on maturity, liquidity and portfolio fit. The firm has instead kept its crypto ETF lineup focused on Bitcoin and Ethereum, markets where it already dominates in the US.
BlackRock does accept Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin as collateral in BUIDL, its tokenized Treasury fund. But RLUSD is a dollar-pegged stablecoin, not the volatile XRP token, so that arrangement says nothing about an XRP ETF.
The ETF market is moving on without BlackRock
As of September 25, 2026, the seven existing spot XRP ETFs collectively held around $1.77 billion in assets, or about 1.18 billion XRP tokens — roughly 1.9% of the token's circulating supply. Issuers in that group include Franklin Templeton, Grayscale, 21Shares and Bitwise.
However, that total falls far short of the $8 billion that analysts had projected two years before the funds launched. By comparison, BlackRock's own iShares Bitcoin Trust holds $67 billion in assets under management, and its iShares Ethereum Trust holds $10 billion.
Why the outlook has turned cautious
BlackRock's absence is reportedly contributing to a more cautious market outlook on XRP than on Bitcoin or Ethereum. If the largest asset manager in the world keeps concluding its clients don't want XRP exposure, other institutions may take note of that signal.
The data points worth tracking are assets under management across the seven existing XRP ETFs, any shift in BlackRock's public language on the token, and whether the ETFs' share of circulating supply climbs meaningfully above its current 1.9%.
Sources: Crypto Briefing, The Motley Fool
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