Could XRP actually overtake Bitcoin? According to Ripple Chief Technology Officer Emeritus David Schwartz, it is possible — but probably not in the way crypto traders might expect.
Speaking in an X Space on Wednesday, Schwartz said XRP could eventually surpass Bitcoin in market capitalization if the XRP Ledger continues gaining adoption. The key, he argued, would be XRP growing faster rather than Bitcoin becoming smaller.
His scenario assumes a future in which digital assets as a whole become dramatically more valuable, with XRP capturing an unusually large share of that expansion.
“I think that the world where that happens is the world where all the markets grow much, much larger,” Schwartz said.
His argument rests partly on the architecture of the XRP Ledger. Schwartz pointed to its speed and broader functionality, suggesting those advantages could attract applications and demand that Bitcoin is not designed to handle in the same way.
XRP Has a Lot of Ground to Cover
The market is not exactly reflecting a Bitcoin-to-XRP handoff yet. Bitcoin’s market capitalization remains several multiples larger than XRP’s, making a flip an extremely ambitious outcome.
Still, there has been a recent divergence in ETF flows. XRP spot ETFs posted inflows for two consecutive days on September 8 and 9, drawing a combined $13.84 million, according to SoSoValue.
Bitcoin spot ETFs moved in the opposite direction over the same period, recording two straight days of outflows totaling $166.89 million.
The contrast offers a curious snapshot of investor behavior during the broader market sell-off: money was moving into XRP-linked funds while flowing out of Bitcoin products. It does not prove Schwartz’s long-term case, but it gives the thesis an interesting short-term wrinkle.
Price analysts are offering their own, far more bullish possibilities. EGRAG Crypto recently published an updated Elliott Wave analysis of XRP based on roughly the past two to three years of price action.
The revised count identifies three potential upside targets: $14 as the first major level, $27 as a mid-range expansion target, and $48 as the full macro target.
Those figures come from EGRAG’s updated wave structure, which incorporates newer price action and a revised interpretation of the broader pattern. They are technical-analysis targets, not a prediction from Ripple.
For now, XRP flipping Bitcoin remains firmly in the realm of possibility rather than probability. Even Schwartz framed the idea as conditional, tying it to a much larger digital asset economy and the XRP Ledger’s ability to capture demand through functionality.
That makes the real question less about Bitcoin suddenly losing its crown and more about whether XRP could grow into a much bigger role in a market that itself expands dramatically.