Purchasing XRP (how to buy xrp) in USDT or USD is a common feature on conventional exchanges, but with significant differences in price, effectiveness and appropriateness for situations. Authorized sites such as Coinbase and Kraken offer direct purchases of XRP in USD. Statistics in 2024 show that the depth of liquidity for the trading pair XRP/USD of Coinbase averages 150 million US dollars a daily basis, a uniform spread of 0.1% to 0.3%, and the minimum buy/sell amount per trade is 10 US dollars. But there is another charge of 1.49% (or 0.5% ACH bank transfer charge) to receive it in 3 to 5 working days. In contrast, the purchase of XRP with USDT is normally a coin-to-coin trading pair (such as XRP/USDT). The level of this trading pair on Binance has ranged over 530 million US dollars a day with a spread of only 0.02%. The order fee is 0.1% (which can be reduced to 0.075% with payment by BNB). But another cost of USD to USDT conversion must be borne (if USDT is purchased through the fiat channel, the processing fee is approximately 0.2%-0.5%).
The cost-benefit analysis shows that large transactions are more likely to go through the USDT channel. Take the purchase of $1,000 equivalent XRP:
If purchased from Coinbase’s USD directly, it pays a handling fee of $14.9 (credit card) or $5 (bank transfer);
By first purchasing USDT with a 0.2% trading fee ($2 cost) on Binance and then converting XRP at 0.1% ($1 cost), the total cost is $3, saving 78%. However, the USDT cost advantage for small transactions (such as $100) has weakened somewhat – the fixed cost to exchange USDT (such as the minimum charge of processing $0.5) is 0.5%, and the overall cost after adding transaction fees is $1.5, which remains below the $1.49 (1.49%) of Coinbase credit cards. According to CoinGecko’s statistics in 2024, 50% of the global XRP trading volume is completed through USDT, 28% through USD, and 22% through the euro and other fiat currencies.
Regulatory restrictions affect the channels for purchasing USD. After the SEC sued Ripple in 2023, US exchanges Gemini and Bitstamp suspended the XRP/USD trading pair. However, international exchanges such as Binance.US fulfilled the demand by re-listing XRP/USDT (average daily trading volume of 180 million US dollars). After the EU’s Crypto Markets Act (MiCA) went live in 2024, European XRP purchasers using USD will pay an additional 1.5% currency exchange fee (e.g., Kraken), while the USDT pathway, since it is exempt from fiat money regulation, charges a mere 0.16% transaction fee. Regarding liquidity, the Asian market’s spread range for XRP/USDT (0.01%-0.03%) is significantly smaller than that of XRP/USD for the American and European markets (0.1%-0.5%), especially during hours of heightened activity (e.g., release of Ripple quarterly financial report). The likelihood of USDT trading pairs’ slippage is only one-third that of USD (according to a 2024 BitMEX research report).
Operational efficiency and arrival time are also key variables. Bank transfer (ACH) for buying XRP in USD has a duration of 1 to 3 working days, while on-chain transfer of USDT (such as the TRC-20 network) can be accomplished within 5 minutes, with a processing fee of 0.1 USDT (approximately 0.01 US dollars). In the wake of the FTX disaster of 2024, users were inclined more towards instant settlement – e.g., the median time to arrival of Bitstamp’s XRP/USD instant buy option (using Apple Pay) was 2 minutes, but the spread opened up to 0.8%. Users are able to settle buying XRP within 11 seconds via OKX’s USDT flash exchange option with the spread limited to 0.05%. For high-frequency trading, the frequency of daily USDT path trading can be 20 times (cumulative fee cost 0.4%), and for USD path, subject to bank limit restrictions, the maximum daily operating frequency is usually 5 times (cumulative cost 7.45%).
Market fluctuations have varying effects on the two paths. While the price of XRP fluctuates drastically (30-day annualized volatility greater than 80%), the anchanchor deviation of USDT can extend to ±0.5% (e.g., during the 2024 Tether reserve scandal), and the real XRP/USDT transaction price will deviate from expectation by 1%-2%. USD direct purchase is protected by the stability of fiat currency, and the price deviation is usually kept within ±0.3%. But if one must hedge against US dollar inflation risk, the approach of keeping USDT to buy XRP did better than that in 2023 – per Bloomberg data, the XRP/USDT trading pair had an annualized return rate of 39% for the year, whereas that of the XRP/USD was 35% (discounted by a 6.5% rise in the US dollar CPI).
in summary, USD or USDT is chosen as the vehicle to buy xrp depending on the size of the transaction, the requirement for immediacy and the regulatory environment. High-frequency low-amount trading is suitable for the USDT path (total cost less than 0.5%), while long-term holding of large amounts is appropriate for USD (assurance of compliance). Juniper Research believes the share of USDT involved in XRP transactions will expand to 58% in 2025 as USD falls back to 22% under pressures of increasing regulatory tightness, and new stablecoins (like EURT) taking up the rest. Traders can minimize costs by having a combination approach, e.g., purchasing USDT in USD (during periods of low interest rates), then bulk purchasing in the XRP/USDT trading pair.