If the Market Ever Crashes, Should You Buy Bitcoin or XRP?

On any given day, you probably shouldn't bet on a stock market crash happening, and generally, it isn't worth losing sleep over whether a crash is about to happen. Nonetheless, it's worth planning ahead so that you'll know precisely what to do when one actually does happen someday.

So, on that note, between Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) or XRP (CRYPTO: XRP), which one is more likely to still have a reason to exist after the dust from a crash settles?

Image source: Getty Images.

Bitcoin's edge in a crash is structural

As you probably remember, the Oct. 10, 2025 crypto sector crash erased more than $1 trillion of market value across cryptoassets. That means we have a very recent example in hand to guide how we think about how these assets perform and why.

Take a look at this chart:

Bitcoin Price data by YCharts

As you can see, Bitcoin tends to come out the other side of turbulent episodes looking a bit better because it is the simplest big asset with the widest base of long-term holders in the crypto sector, as well as one of the biggest in the world. The proof is in the pudding; in the past, it has recovered from absurd drawdowns, including declines deeper than 70%, and importantly, it still eventually set new highs afterward.

That pattern isn't a promise of the price going up when you want it to, of course. Still, Bitcoin's core mechanism is its ever-increasing scarcity, which remains in effect even after the market craters. The halving schedule that reduces new supply roughly every four years is part of that design.

So if a crash occurs, it tends to pay off to start buying Bitcoin in small tranches over the course of weeks or months. If you're comfortable with feeling uncomfortable (due to your investment being underwater) for a while, such behavior has so far always paid off in the long run.

XRP can rebound, but expect slower progress

XRP has recovered from brutal declines before, just like Bitcoin, but it's also far more entangled with institutional financial adoption narratives and Ripple's execution with the chain's technical development.

Ripple markets the coin and its chain as financial infrastructure for faster cross-border payments and tokenized real-world asset (RWA) management, so there are a lot more economic, market, and financial risks that bleed into the coin's price and keep it down. And while the XRP Ledger (XRPL) is maintained by a broader community, there's still no escaping the reality that a lot of demand for the coin still depends on institutions choosing to build their operations on a tech stack that Ripple champions.

Therefore in the context of a market crash -- especially one triggered by real economic phenomena that alter how willing financial businesses will be to invest in onboarding new technologies -- XRP is practically destined to see a worse near-term outcome than Bitcoin, as well as a recovery that's more likely to be hampered by real economic constraints.

So, if there's a future crash, buy Bitcoin if you want the asset whose investment thesis requires the fewest external parties to behave well.

Alex Carchidi has positions in Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.