Being a small fry investor and a crypto enthusiast, I tend to read a lot about assets that I have my money invested in. One of my favourites is definitely #xrp which I've been tracking since '19. So these days, fuelled by a very fine rise of 250-300% since Trump victory and the news of Gensler's resignation, there are a lot of articles about how XRP will go to $5, $10, $100 and even $1000. And while I'd love to see that sweet $1000, which would make me a millionaire, I think maybe some perspective would be in order.
But first, tl;dr
XRP's current market cap at $2.07 is ~$119,000,000,000. 119 billion. To get to $5 it would need to reach $288,000,000,000, to get to $10 it would need to be $575,000,000,000. To get to $100 it would need to be almost double the current cap of all the cryptos together, bitcoin included, and to get to $1000 it would need to be over $50 trillion, which is almost half the current value of all the markets on planet Earth. So no, it's pretty safe to assume that it's not going to get there, ever. Period. However, I do think $5 is reasonable, $10 is possible. Anything above that would mean the current financial landscape would need to shift significantly.
What's realistic, and the reasoning.
To repeat, at ~$2 XRP's cap is ~$115,000,000,000 so $10 price would put it at ~$575,000,000,000 which would put it above the current ETH cap. That's not impossible, but it's not easy, either. We need to observe an asset in the context of the market. Acknowledging there are ~2,500,000 crypto projects, most of them rubbish, and considering that there are at least 1,000 serious projects with solid footing, we should keep in mind that either the whole market will need to move, or an asset would need to feed off the value of other assets. Let's do some mental exercises.
Scenario 1: the whole market moves
Let's think about it. Top 10 cryptos make 87% of the market's cap, and top 100 have ~96% dominance. So the other 2,499,400 are of no significance for this exercise. We shall then assume that a good portion of those top 100 have some value, or they wouldn't be there. Given that, people are also going to invest in them, not just XRP. In that context, a 5x move to $10 would mean a 5x move for the market, from the current 3.3 trillion to over 15 trillion, i.e. from 3% of the global market value to 15% of the global market value. Yes, that's the whole Earth.
So yeah, that's going to take time.
Scenario 2: the asset moves independently
XRP is a strong, resilient asset with a solid footing. So surely it can move independently of the market. Well, yes and no. I mean ideally so, but humans usually human. So everyone looks at BTC until BTC sort of stabilizes, then everyone apes into alts, especially memes in hopes of guessing that fine 10,000,000% token that will turn their $100 investment into a million. But I digress.
Crypto market is still not mature enough for assets to reach full independence, but they're getting there. So XRP has a chance of making moves that are bigger or smaller than market movement, and in that XRP has a good chance of reaching new heights without completely relying on BTC or the whole market to move. As for whether it can reach or outperform ETH, I wouldn't put it past XRP. I mean, they're both strong assets.
Finally, let's take into account that the bigger the asset's cap, the harder it will move up. What I mean is that a 100% move from $50,000,000 to $100,000,000 takes 50,000,000. A 100% move from $500,000,000 to $100,000,000 takes ten times more money. So the bigger it gets, the harder it gets for that percentage dial to move.
Conclusion?
I don't think XRP will ever reach $1000, and I don't see it reaching $100, not in the next 10 years. And 10 years is an eternity in the world of tech. Just wait for quantum computers to be a bit more accessible, wait for those qubits to multiply, and we'll see which blockchains remain secure.
I do think it will reach $5, and think it could reach $10, but that will depend on much wider adoption and contracts with institutions. I'm hoping to take profit around this cycle's top, and I am expecting to see some bull market post inauguration with Trump settling in office. Seems those guys have been planning the takeover for a long time, we'll see where they land.
The future is uncertain, so🤞
