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XRP (XRP 0.02%) has advanced 13% year to date. It currently trades at $2.30 and has a market value of $135 billion as of June 10. But at least one Wall Street analyst thinks the cryptocurrency will be worth much more in three years.
Geoff Kendrick at Standard Chartered recently predicted XRP would overtake Ethereum by 2028. To put that in context, Ethereum currently has a market value of $335 billion, so XRP must increase nearly 150% to reach the same level. That would bring its price to $5.70.
Here's what investors should know.
Image source: Getty Images.
XRP is the native digital asset on the XRP Ledger, the blockchain developed by technology company Ripple to simplify cross-border transactions. Traditionally, banks have used the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) system to move money across borders, but transactions can be expensive and costly.
The XRP Ledger is a faster and cheaper alternative to SWIFT. Ripple Payments lets financial institutions use the blockchain (with XRP as a bridge currency) to send cross-border payments. If banks and payment service providers adopt Ripple products, demand for XRP will increase and the token could become more valuable. However, the particular tailwind will likely be modest at best.
In my opinion, the more likely catalyst is increased capital inflows as more retail investors and institutional investors buy the cryptocurrency for their portfolios.
Asset manager Guggenheim recently tapped the XRP Ledger to issue digital commercial paper, a fixed-income asset backed by U.S. Treasuries. The XRP Ledger currently accounts for a small percentage of tokenized real-world assets -- which are forecast to hit $19 trillion by 2033 -- but the addition of tokenized debt to the platform is a positive development that could lead to more transactions on the network.
However, not many financial institutions use XRP as a bridge currency, and I doubt that will change. Price volatility makes cryptocurrency a risky way to move money. Ripple has addressed that problem by creating a stablecoin called Ripple USD. Yet, while payments made in Ripple USD incur transaction fees denominated in XRP, those fees are small and the incremental demand for the cryptocurrency is negligible. For that reason, financial institutions using Ripple Payments are unlikely to be a material catalyst for XRP.
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the largest derivatives marketplace in the United States, introduced XRP futures trading in May. Meanwhile, a few asset managers have rolled out XRP futures ETFs. Both create new ways for investors to trade XRP, but the most important potential catalyst is the pending approval of several applications for spot XRP ETFs.
Spot XRP ETFs would own the crytocurrency and track its price, rather than trading futures contracts. In other words, spot XRP ETFs would give investors direct exposure to the cryptocurrency through traditional brokerage accounts, without the high fees associated with cryptocurrency exchanges. By reducing friction, spot ETFs could unlock demand among retail and institutional investors.
Indeed, Bitcoin's price has skyrocketed 136% since spot Bitcoin ETFs were approved in January 2024. I think approval of spot XRP ETFs could lead to similar price appreciation, such that XRP could potentially overtake Ethereum by 2028. That makes XRP a compelling investment option. That said, I would rather own a spot XRP ETF than the cryptocurrency, so I plan to wait until those investment vehicles win SEC approval.