Michael Del Monte of Monte Independent Investment Research assigns a “Hold” rating to the REX-Osprey XRP ETF, citing near-term headwinds in the broader crypto market and a rotation of capital into quality, value, and income-oriented assets. The ETF carries a 0.75% expense ratio—among the highest in the spot-crypto ETF universe—and has underperformed its peers by roughly 150 basis points over the past quarter. While XRP exposure could benefit from eventual bank adoption of Ripple’s cross-border settlement protocol, Del Monte notes that competing bank-backed stablecoins have eroded XRP’s potential use case and leave the timing of any material adoption uncertain.

On-chain data from the XRP Ledger shows that average daily transaction counts have fallen 25% month-over-month, while total settled volume on-ledger slid 30% in the same period. Despite these usage declines, the REX-Osprey ETF attracted approximately $45 million in net inflows over the past two weeks, suggesting that speculative capital is masking XRP’s weakening real-world activity. Del Monte warns investors that the persistence of low network usage could limit XRP’s upside even if ETF flows remain strong.

Ripple’s long-term thesis hinges on banks integrating its protocol for faster, cheaper cross-border transfers, but only three commercial institutions have completed pilot programs in the past 12 months. Each pilot processed fewer than $10 million in aggregate volume, representing less than 0.01% of average daily global FX settlement amounts. With traditional correspondent banking and new stablecoin rails capturing more institutional attention, the analyst sees limited catalysts for a rapid acceleration of bank-level XRP usage.

At 75 basis points, the REX-Osprey XRP ETF is priced roughly twice as high as the average spot-crypto ETF, which now charges 30 to 40 basis points. Over a hypothetical five-year holding period, an investor would pay nearly 4% of their initial capital in fees alone, before accounting for any tracking error or underperformance. Del Monte concludes that until the expense disadvantage narrows or network fundamentals improve substantially, XRPR is unlikely to reclaim favor among yield-seeking or cost-conscious investors.