The XRP price is down 24% since January 1 at $1.41 and Chainlink is down 4% at $11.74, but both are down close to half over twelve months, Chainlink by 48% and XRP by 50%.
Chainlink's deals with SWIFT, S&P Global, and 600-plus banks via Bottomline haven't lifted LINK because none require buying or holding the token.
Chainlink fell from $24 in August 2025 to $12 by January 1, a 50% drop, while XRP fell 34% over the same months, so Chainlink's smaller 2026 loss is a bounce from a lower start.
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The XRP (CRYPTO:XRP) price traded at $1.41 on September 5, down 24% since January 1, while Chainlink (CRYPTO:LINK) traded at $11.74, down 4%. That's a wide gap between two coins that move with the same market.
One explanation is that Chainlink keeps signing banks and payment firms to use its software, and XRP doesn't. But both coins are down close to half over twelve months, Chainlink by 48% and XRP by 50%, so would bank deals explain a gap that nearly disappears over a full year?
Chainlink sells software that feeds outside information into a blockchain, because a blockchain can't read a share price, an interest rate or a payment confirmation without help, which is why banks deal with it. Chainlink has worked with SWIFT since 2024 on letting banks send blockchain payments through the messaging system they already use. S&P Global put its stablecoin ratings on Chainlink in 2025, and SBI Group signed a partnership in August 2025.
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However, none of those deals moved the Chainlink price for long. LINK fell 6% on August 25, 2025, the day SBI was announced, and when Chainlink joined 47 banks in Project Pangea on June 23, 2026, the price barely moved. The network had processed more than $30 trillion by April 2026, and the coin is down 48% in the twelve months to September 5, so the software gets used while the coin gets cheaper.
The Bottomline deal on September 3, 2026, follows the same pattern. Bottomline supplies payment software to more than 600 banks that move $16 trillion a year, and the deal lets those banks send payments onto a blockchain through Chainlink without changing the systems they use. LINK rose 6% on the news and reached $12 for the first time since January 2026.
But the deal doesn't require any of those 600 banks to buy or hold LINK. None of Chainlink's partnerships has taken that step, so not one has lifted the price for more than a day.
XRP is built to move money between two currencies, so a payment converts into XRP on one side and out of it on the other. That's the service Ripple sells to banks, and the XRP price is supposed to rise as more payments flow through the coin, because each one needs XRP to bridge it.
However, the two Ripple deals that got the most attention were sponsorships. Kansas Athletics signed a five-year partnership with Ripple in July 2026 that put an XRP patch on jerseys across its athletics program, and Florida Athletics announced a multi-year deal on September 4 that puts the XRP logo on the field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Sponsorship deals create awareness among football fans, a wide audience but one with few crypto buyers in it.
Neither deal requires the university, its suppliers or its fans to buy XRP, hold it, or pay anyone in it. XRP fell below $1 on August 11, the month after Kansas signed, and the XRP price traded at $1.41 on September 5, the day the Florida logo went on the field.
The XRP price and the Chainlink price both lost close to half their value in twelve months, but they lost it at different times. Chainlink traded near $24 in August 2025 and had fallen to $12 by January 1, a drop of about 50% in four months. XRP traded at $2.79 in September 2025 and fell to $1.84 by January 1, a drop of about 34%.
Chainlink started 2026 much further below its 2025 high than XRP did, and it kept falling. LINK spent most of 2026 between $8 and $10, then rallied back to $12 in August, which is where it began the year. XRP rallied from under $1 to $1.41 over the same weeks, which is still 24% below where it began.
So Chainlink's smaller year-to-date loss comes from a bigger fall in late 2025 and a bigger bounce since August, and neither of those needs a bank deal to explain it.
Bank deals are unlikely to explain why the XRP price is down 24% since January 1 and Chainlink is down 4%, because neither coin's deals have asked anyone to hold the coin. Chainlink's banks use its software without being required to hold LINK. Ripple's football deals put a logo on a field. The price of a coin moves when people have to buy it, and none of these partnerships has made anyone do that.
If a bank in the Bottomline network said it holds LINK to pay for Chainlink's service, or if Ripple named a bank settling payments in XRP and put the volume in its quarterly report, that coin would have a reason to rise beyond a bounce from a low price. Neither has come, and until one does, the gap between these two coins could close or widen with the rest of the market.
So if you hold XRP and you're watching Chainlink's announcements, the announcements aren't the difference. XRP's next catalyst is the Senate's CLARITY Act vote on September 15. A change in the law could move the price in a way that a jersey patch hasn't.
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