XRP (XRP 0.78%), which was launched in 2012, had its earliest trading price of $0.006 per token in Aug. 2013. Today, it trades at about $1.84.
That rally would have turned a $1,000 investment into nearly $307,000. Let's see why XRP generated such massive gains -- and four reasons it might be worth buying before 2030.
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Why did XRP's price soar?
The founders of Ripple Labs, a fintech company focused on blockchain-based payments, minted XRP's entire supply of 100 billion tokens on the XRP Ledger before its launch. Ripple originally held 80 billion of those tokens, and it gradually sold those coins to fund its own expansion. In response, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Ripple, accusing it of selling its XRP tokens as unlicensed securities in 2020. Ripple subsequently lost many of its top customers, and XRP was delisted from the major cryptocurrency exchanges.
That lawsuit weighed down XRP's price for years, but it finally concluded with a lighter-than-expected fine for Ripple in August. The court also ruled that XRP wasn't an unlicensed security when sold to retail investors on public exchanges, and the top crypto exchanges finally relisted the token. The SEC even approved the first spot price exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for XRP -- including Bitwise XRP (XRP +0.19%), Canary XRP ETF (XRPC +0.41%) -- which started trading in November and December. As of this writing, those XRP ETFs have posted net inflows for the past seven consecutive weeks.
Therefore, the conclusion of the SEC lawsuit, XRP's rising profile among retail investors, and its integration into Ripple's fintech ecosystem all contributed to its price increase in 2025.
CRYPTO: XRP
Key Data Points
The four reasons XRP could soar higher by 2030
Analysts, on average, expect XRP's price to nearly triple to about $5 by 2030. Four catalysts could drive XRP toward that target.
First, it must be widely adopted as a "bridge currency" for cross-border remittances on the Ripple network. In such cross-border transfers, both fiat currencies are converted to XRP and then instantly converted back to the target currencies. That process is cheaper and faster than traditional SWIFT transfers because the two fiat currencies don't need to be directly converted.
Second, Ripple submitted its application for a U.S. bank charter in July. If Ripple evolves into a full digital bank and expands RippleNet (the network of financial institutions that use its software), its users could more widely adopt XRP for mainstream payments and transactions.
Third, XRP's recent addition of Ethereum (ETH 0.45%) compatible "sidechains" to its ledger could drive more developers of decentralized apps (dApps) to support its token. In the past, XRP only natively supported lightweight "hooks" to create simpler applications.
Lastly, the Fed should continue to cut its benchmark rates over the next few years as long as inflation remains under control. Those lower rates should drive growth-oriented investors back toward smaller cryptocurrencies like XRP. The approvals of more spot price ETFs would make it even easier for retail investors to increase their exposure to the token.
Should you invest in XRP today?
XRP might be worth considering over the next five years if those catalysts materialize. However, investors shouldn't bet the farm on XRP today because it still has a lot to prove.
For now, it can't be valued by its scarcity like Bitcoin (BTC 0.48%) because it can't be actively mined. It can't be valued by the size of its developer ecosystem like Ethereum, since it only recently added support for Ethereum-compatible sidechains. It could also face competition from stablecoins -- which are mainly pinned to the U.S. dollar -- as bridge currencies.
Therefore, XRP needs to gain more momentum in remittances, be more widely used in mainstream payments, and attract more attention from retail and institutional investors to double or triple in value by the end of the decade. If it checks those boxes, it could surpass the market's average price targets by 2030 and soar significantly higher over the next few decades.
