David Schwartz, the former CTO of Ripple and architect of the XRP Ledger, recently stated that XRP could potentially surpass Bitcoin in market capitalization. During an X Spaces discussion, he clarified that this scenario would rely on XRP growing at a faster rate than Bitcoin, rather than a decline in Bitcoin's own value.
Schwartz attributes the potential for this growth to the technical design of the XRP Ledger. He noted that the network was built to be a faster and more scalable payments system compared to Bitcoin, offering functionality that the Bitcoin base layer does not support. These features could attract more users and capital.
The current market data highlights a significant gap between the two assets. As of September 10, Bitcoin traded near $77 165 with a market cap of $1,54 trillion, while XRP traded near $1,35 with a market cap of $85 billion. Bitcoin is currently roughly 18 times larger than XRP.
To match Bitcoin's current market cap, XRP would need to reach a price of approximately $24,50, based on a circulating supply of 62,7 billion tokens. Schwartz emphasized that this outcome is not inevitable or imminent, but rather a conditional possibility based on the future expansion of the digital asset market.
Historically, XRP has demonstrated the ability to close market gaps. In late 2017 and early 2018, the asset briefly surpassed Ethereum to become the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Schwartz also recalled selling XRP at $0,10, noting that it felt high compared to earlier levels of $0,006.
