A crypto market researcher has compared Stellar (XLM) and XRP as two networks where investors are positioning themselves ahead of expected institutional tokenization and settlement activity, arguing that Stellar offers a significantly cheaper path to a top-tier wallet-percentile position. Both networks share common origins in cross-border payments — Stellar was co-founded by Jed McCaleb after he departed Ripple — and each has increasingly pivoted its messaging toward institutional asset tokenization as that use case gains traction across the broader financial industry.

In a YouTube video, the host of Be Crypto Smart cited recent on-chain scans showing that a top-1% Stellar wallet holds approximately 12,444 XLM, valued at about $2,072 at an XLM price near $0.165. Reaching the same percentile on XRP reportedly requires 44,967 XRP, or roughly $47,889 at $1.60 per token.

Wallet Distribution Drives the Gap

The disparity is not presented as evidence that one community is wealthier than the other. Instead, the video attributes the difference primarily to token prices and wallet-distribution curves. Stellar was said to have nearly 11 million wallets, compared with approximately 8 million funded XRP wallets.

For the top 10%, the cited threshold was around 2,200 XLM, worth approximately $365, versus 2,157 XRP, valued at about $2,297. The speaker argued that this makes it more attainable for smaller investors to build a relatively high-percentile XLM position over time.

Both networks remain heavily concentrated at the top, according to the presentation. The video said 306 Stellar wallets holding at least 5 million XLM control 80.2% of circulating supply, while 518 XRP wallets with at least 10 million XRP hold 78.1%.

That concentration requires context, the speaker noted. Large wallets can include exchange reserves, foundations, custodians, and in XRP's case, Ripple-linked escrow accounts. The presenter argued that the freely tradable supply available to new buyers may be lower than headline circulating-supply figures suggest. Such concentration patterns are common across major public blockchains, where exchange-held reserves, protocol foundation treasuries, and developer escrows routinely account for large portions of nominal supply.

Institutional Claims Remain the Real Test

On the XRP side, the video highlighted comments from Ripple President Monica Long, who described a "light switch flipping" as institutions move tokenized funds from pilots toward production use. The analysis also cited Ripple investments in XELO and Liquido, the tokenization of an Aviva Investors dollar liquidity fund on the XRP Ledger, and Ripple's RLUSD issuance platform.

For Stellar, Be Crypto Smart pointed to a reported DTCC plan to tokenize custodial assets on Stellar, with a target launch in the first half of 2027. The video also cited new tier-one validators including MoneyGram and Figure Markets, up to $1 billion in tokenized private credit planned by Tradeable, and $3.0006 billion in tokenized real-world assets on the network. The broader tokenized real-world-asset category has drawn participation from traditional asset managers including BlackRock, which launched its BUIDL institutional liquidity fund on Ethereum, and Franklin Templeton, which expanded its on-chain government money fund to multiple networks.

The investment case remains conditional rather than settled. Be Crypto Smart acknowledged that validator additions and institutional announcements do not automatically translate into token demand, and that the DTCC timeline is a target rather than a guarantee.