$24.50 per $XRP, multiplied across 62.7 billion coins in circulation, puts XRP's market capitalization at roughly $1.54 trillion, matching Bitcoin's current range and closing a gap that stood at about $1.49 trillion at September 12 prices ($1.36 for XRP, $77,310 for $BTC). Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz said on an X Spaces on September 9 that he expects XRP to eventually surpass Bitcoin in market value, with one condition: the move has to come from XRP growing faster, not from Bitcoin losing ground.
| Metric | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| XRP price (Sep 12) | $1.36 | Reported |
| $BTC price (Sep 12) | ~$77,310 | Reported |
| Bitcoin market cap | $1.54T-$1.58T | Reported |
| XRP market cap | $85B-$89B | Reported |
| Cap gap | ~$1.49T | Reported |
| XRP flip price (62.7B coins) | ~$24.50 | Market math |
| Multiple vs. XRP ATH ($3.84, Jan 2018) | 6.4x | Market math |
| XRP 1-month gain | 34.59% | Reported |
| $BTC 1-month gain | 21.77% | Reported |
The arithmetic of the flip
Schwartz, an architect of the XRP Ledger, the settlement network that clears XRP transactions, was responding to a listener named Angie on an X Spaces hosted by ILLY. His answer was "Yeah, I do." He described a crypto market that keeps expanding, with XRP compounding faster inside it so both assets rise and XRP rises more. "I think XRP surging is probably more likely than not," he added. He named no price target, no timeline, and no milestone along the way.
The $24.50 figure belongs to the market, not to Schwartz. It is 6.4 times XRP's all-time high of $3.84, set in January 2018 and never reached since. The target also moves: if Bitcoin's market cap keeps expanding, the price XRP needs to catch it rises with it, which is exactly the scenario Schwartz described.
XRP gained 34.59% over the past month against Bitcoin's 21.77%. The ratio points in the right direction. It does not close a $1.49 trillion gap in one run, or in several. XRP trails Bitcoin's market cap by about 18 times today. In early 2018, XRP briefly became the second-largest cryptocurrency at about $86 billion in market cap, passing Ethereum from about 15% behind. The structural distance now is different.
Bitcoin holds advantages Ethereum did not have in 2018: spot ETFs, corporate treasuries, and settled regulatory status. A repeat of the 2018 sequence at the same scale would return XRP to second place. Closing the gap to first requires consecutive quarters of faster market cap growth alongside payment volume on the XRP Ledger that no Bitcoin product currently competes for. Nothing on the calendar before the end of 2026 delivers that.