If you'd bought $10,000 worth of XRP (XRP -0.09%) back in 2021, your position would be worth a jaw-dropping $118,000 today, highlighting the life-changing potential of cryptocurrency investing. The S&P 500 would have returned a comparably measly $20,000 during that same time frame.
However, with its market cap now exceeding $138 billion, XRP will find it more challenging to maintain the same explosive momentum as in the past. Let's explore whether recent regulatory wins and increasing institutional adoption could be the key to the cryptocurrency's long-term success.
Investors are getting optimistic again
While XRP is still down roughly 38% from its all-time high of $3.84 (reached in 2018), momentum is picking up -- with the token's price up more than double during the past six months. It isn't hard to see why investors are getting optimistic again. Under the Trump administration, the U.S. government has demonstrated a much softer stance toward the industry.
In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. to create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile to store cryptocurrencies, which the government typically seizes in civil or criminal asset forfeitures. This move would not only help to legitimize these assets, but it could also reduce selling pressure; both the Reserve and the Stockpile would holding the cryptos rather than liquidate them for cash. The cryptocurrency industry has also enjoyed recent wins on the regulatory front.
In March, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decided to drop its appeal against a favorable ruling for XRP's developer, Ripple Labs, which established that its tokens are not securities when sold to retail investors on public exchanges. While Ripple still faces fines related to its sales of XRP to institutional investors, this decision removes a significant overhang for XRP.
XRP's path to mainstream adoption
XRP's long-term success will depend on its mainstream adoption, both as a financial asset and in real-world use cases. The good news is that it has some advantages over its biggest rivals. While Bitcoin was created to function as a store of value and medium of exchange, XRP targets the potentially lucrative market of international payments, currently served by arguably archaic platforms such as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), which was established in 1973.
Although Ripple and XRP are unlikely to replace SWIFT anytime soon, they could provide an alternative for small companies and individuals who prioritize speed and low costs.
According to Business Insider, an outgoing international wire transfer currently costs about $15 to $30 (settling in as long as five days). Using different currencies could add further costs and complexities. XRP solves this problem by acting as a bridge. If someone in the U.S. wants to transfer dollars to Japan (where the yen is used), they could convert their dollars to XRP and use that XRP to buy the Japanese yen.
Image source: Getty Images.
To be fair, pretty much all cryptocurrencies can fill this role, but XRP sets itself apart with its extremely low fee of 0.00001 XRP per transaction, which is a fraction of a cent. For context, Bitcoin currently costs about $1.50 per transaction, while Ethereum costs $0.25 per transaction. These numbers can spike dramatically depending on network traffic.
Is XRP a millionaire-maker cryptocurrency?
With a token price of just $2.38 each at the time of writing, XRP looks extremely cheap compared to other leading cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, which trade for $105,500 and $2,520, respectively. But this tells only half the story. With a market cap of $138 billion, XRP is already the world's fourth-largest crypto.
The asset's immense size means it is unlikely to repeat the explosive multibagger returns it enjoyed during the past five years. The larger something is, the harder it is to grow. That said, XRP's recent regulatory wins and potential for mainstream adoption in the international payments industry could set it up for continued market-beating success.
