Former Ripple CTO Makes Surprising XRP Prediction

David Schwartz, the longtime architect of the XRP Ledger and Ripple’s Chief Technology Officer emeritus, said publicly this week that XRP could one day overtake Bitcoin by market capitalization.

Speaking during a recent X Spaces discussion, Schwartz answered a direct question about whether such a “flippening” was possible. “Yeah, I do,” he replied, adding a key caveat.

Angie asked "David in your humble opinion, do you believe XRP could actually flip Bitcoin?" pic.twitter.com/InhjVrM6Gv

— Vet (@Vet_X0) September 9, 2026

Follow us on X to get the latest news as it happens.

Why Schwartz Thinks Growth, Not Collapse, Could Do It

It wouldn’t happen from Bitcoin shrinking, Schwartz said. It would happen from XRP growing faster than Bitcoin.

He framed the scenario within a broader expansion of the digital-asset market, arguing that in a future where crypto as a whole becomes far larger, top assets could all rise in value rather than simply competing for a fixed share of capital.

“But I think it wouldn’t happen from Bitcoin shrinking. It would happen from XRP growing faster than Bitcoin,” David Schwartz said.

The advantages he highlighted center on technical design. The XRP Ledger was built from the start as a faster, more scalable payments network than Bitcoin, with higher transaction speed and functionality that Bitcoin’s base layer cannot support.

Those characteristics, Schwartz argued, could let XRPL attract users and capital seeking capabilities beyond simple store-of-value transfers.

Historical context supports the idea that XRP has closed large gaps before. In late 2017 and early 2018, XRP briefly became the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, surpassing Ethereum and narrowing the distance to Bitcoin during that bull run.

The Math Behind a Bitcoin Flip Today

Schwartz has also recalled selling some XRP near $0.10 because the price already felt extraordinarily high relative to earlier levels around $0.006, much as $100 Bitcoin once seemed absurd.

Today, the numerical gap remains substantial. Bitcoin traded near $77,165 on September 10, with a market cap of around $1.54 trillion, while XRP traded near $1.35, with a market cap of around $85 billion, putting Bitcoin roughly 18x larger.

Matching Bitcoin’s current valuation would require XRP to trade near $24.50, assuming Bitcoin’s market cap holds steady and using XRP’s circulating supply of approximately 62.7 billion tokens. Should Bitcoin continue growing, the target price for a flip would rise accordingly.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch leaders and journalists provide expert insights.

Schwartz did not present the outcome as inevitable or imminent. His comments amount to a conditional possibility rooted in relative technological strengths and overall market expansion, rather than any expected collapse of Bitcoin.

The remarks have nonetheless energized parts of the XRP community, even as they underscore the still-wide gulf separating the two assets today.