Forget XRP Forecasts: The ‘Delusional’ Crowd Could Have The Last Laugh

Back in 2016 and 2017, when XRP was worth less than a penny, Ripple’s then-CTO David Schwartz laid out a rough roadmap of what the token could fetch if things went right.

Matching Bitcoin’s market share, he said, could push the price to around $2. Capturing a slice of global payments might justify $20. And if adoption grew beyond that, $120 was not out of the question. At the time, even reaching $1 seemed far-fetched. XRP has since crossed that threshold several times over.

Validator Backs The Believers

That history is now being used by XRP supporters to defend price targets that critics call absurd. An XRP Ledger validator who goes by the name Vet posted on social media this week that the people routinely mocked for their bold price predictions will likely come out ahead.

“Being a dreamer is just too powerful,” Vet wrote, adding that those labeled delusional would win in the end.

XRP price predictions aside. I may not like this observation. But i do think the delusional people will win at the end.

Somehow, being a dreamer is just too powerful.

— Vet (@Vet_X0) April 10, 2026

The post drew broad support from within the XRP community. One commenter, known online as X Finance Bull, said strong conviction carries people further regardless of the numbers.

Another user argued there is only a thin line between being delusional and being early, with patience and timing ultimately determining who is right.

$1,000 XRP Would Require A Market Cap Larger Than The US Economy

The targets being floated are not modest. Reports indicate that XRP holders have been projecting prices anywhere from $100 to $1,000 and beyond, even as the token sits around $1.30 after nearly nine months of declining prices.

Two commentators argued in a recent podcast that $1,000 per XRP is achievable within four to five years. Their reasoning pointed to Bitcoin’s track record of exceeding expectations, and the role that narrative and mass adoption play in crypto pricing.

Critics, though, have been quick to flag the math. A $1,000 price tag for XRP would push the asset’s total market capitalization to somewhere between $50 trillion and $100 trillion — a figure that dwarfs the entire US stock market. XRP bulls typically counter that market cap is not a reliable ceiling for crypto assets.

What makes the current debate harder to dismiss outright is how often crypto skeptics have been proven wrong. Schwartz’s own 2016 Reddit comments were recently surfaced by community members to show how dramatically market expectations can shift. What seemed mathematically impossible has, in several cases, happened anyway.

Whether $1,000 XRP belongs in the same category remains an open question — one the market alone will eventually settle.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView