{"id":47089,"date":"2026-09-13T13:56:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T13:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=47089"},"modified":"2026-09-13T13:56:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T13:56:13","slug":"could-xrp-actually-flip-bitcoin-former-ripple-cto-says-yes-but-the-math-is-brutal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=47089","title":{"rendered":"Could XRP Actually Flip Bitcoin? Former Ripple CTO Says Yes \u2013 But the Math Is Brutal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cryptopotato.com\/\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Ripple veteran David Schwartz recently said quite convincingly that XRP could eventually overtake bitcoin by market capitalization. However, he outlined the significance of the right conditions and that such a development wouldn&#8217;t come from BTC&#8217;s deterioration.<\/p>\n<p>As such, we decided to go a bit deeper into the numbers and see what actually has to happen for Ripple&#8217;s token to emerge ahead of the current market leader.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"can-xrp-overcome-btc\">Can XRP Overcome BTC?<\/h2>\n<p>The cryptocurrency community has long been dabbling with the question of whether (at least) one altcoin can replace BTC as the largest digital asset by market cap. For almost a decade, that alt representative was Ethereum (ETH), which didn&#8217;t exactly come close several years ago, but there was speculation about a potential Flippening. However, it never materialized.<\/p>\n<p>The focus has now switched to Ripple&#8217;s XRP. During a recent X Spaces discussion, longtime Ripple exec and XRP Ledger architect David Schwartz <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Vet_X0\/status\/2097670700995645801\">said<\/a> he believes it&#8217;s possible for the cross-border token to surpass BTC in terms of market cap. Moreover, he noted that such a wild scenario wouldn&#8217;t transpire because bitcoin had collapsed; instead, he argued that it would unfold under significantly different conditions.<\/p>\n<p>At first, the broader crypto market would have to be dramatically more successful. Second, XRP would grow considerably faster than BTC due to the XRP Ledger&#8217;s functionality, adoption, and real-world usage.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"a-loooong-way-to-go\">A Loooong Way to Go<\/h2>\n<p>Let&#8217;s go directly to math and see where the issue stems from, as the numbers are daunting at current prices. BTC&#8217;s market is at about $1.55 trillion today, compared with approximately $87 billion for XRP. This makes the market leader around 18 times larger.<\/p>\n<p>If we presume that bitcoin&#8217;s valuation remains unchanged, XRP would need to climb toward a $1.55 billion market cap simply to level the playing field. At today&#8217;s circulating supply, that would imply a mind-blowing surge to $24-$25 from the current $1.40 levels.<\/p>\n<p>Schwartz&#8217;s scenario makes that hurdle even bigger, as he doesn&#8217;t believe BTC will remain stagnant. Instead, he noted that the entire crypto market could expand exponentially, meaning that BTC would most likely continue appreciating as well.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s worth noting that XRP has actually been closer to BTC in the past. A lot closer. And still couldn&#8217;t do it. Back in early 2018, XRP&#8217;s market cap had risen to $120 billion as the asset rocketed to its then-ATH. BTC&#8217;s market cap, on the other hand, was a more modest $250-$260 billion.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, XRP was worth almost 50% as much as BTC at the time. Today, that ratio is down to 5%-6%, which makes Schwartz&#8217;s scenario even harder to materialize. But then again, nothing is impossible, right?<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/cryptopotato.com\/could-xrp-actually-flip-bitcoin-former-ripple-cto-says-yes-but-the-math-is-brutal\/\">Could XRP Actually Flip Bitcoin? Former Ripple CTO Says Yes \u2013 But the Math Is Brutal<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/cryptopotato.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">CryptoPotato<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/cryptopotato.com\/could-xrp-actually-flip-bitcoin-former-ripple-cto-says-yes-but-the-math-is-brutal\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ripple veteran David Schwartz recently said quite convincingly that XRP could eventually overtake bitcoin by market capitalization. However,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-crypto","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47089\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}