Could Buying This Cryptocurrency Make You Rich?

XRP (CRYPTO: XRP), a payments coin developed by Ripple, is one of the most successful cryptocurrencies. It's the fifth largest at the time of this writing (Sept. 8) and has a market cap of $89 billion. It has also gotten much cheaper recently, trading at about $1.40, compared to $3.65 last July.

Investors in XRP have seen massive returns before. Given the current dip, let's see if this cryptocurrency could make people rich again.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

XRP has struggled recently despite positive news

Over the past year, XRP has seen several potential growth catalysts come and go without much impact on its price. In August 2025, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple settled a legal battle that had lasted nearly five years. A few months later, the SEC approved the first spot XRP ETFs. After launching, XRP ETFs had 35 consecutive days without a single day of net outflows, a streak that Bitcoin ETFs and Ethereum ETFs didn't match in their early going.

XRP's blockchain, the XRP Ledger, is also becoming a popular platform for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), including tokenized versions of U.S. Treasuries and corporate debt. There's about $460 million in distributed RWAs on the XRP Ledger, ranking it 10th. It's not one of the main hubs yet -- the leading blockchains for RWAs are Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Solana. But if the XRP Ledger can continue to grow its share of the RWA market, this could become another use case alongside its primary role on Ripple's payments network.

If you look at what's been happening with XRP and Ripple, it seems the cryptocurrency is doing well. Despite that, the price is down 52% over the past year. Although that's partly due to a bear market, XRP has declined more than any of the cryptocurrencies ranked above it. For comparison, Bitcoin is down 29%, Ethereum is down 42%, and BNB is down 16% over the same period. (The only other cryptocurrency with a market cap larger than XRP's, Tether, is a stablecoin designed to maintain a fixed price.)

Getting rich with XRP is unlikely

Investing in XRP at its current price could pay off if the crypto market continues to recover, as it has since late August. XRP was trading between about $2 and $3.65 for most of 2025, and even the low end of that range would be a return of more than 40% from where it is now.

For XRP to get beyond that range, real-world adoption will likely need to grow. That could happen if more financial institutions on Ripple's payments network opt to use XRP to send international payments, or if the XRP Ledger can draw more RWAs.

If XRP experiences another price surge, a reasonable expectation would be for it to surpass $4 and set a new all-time high. In a very optimistic scenario, it may trade in the $5-to-$10 range at some point in the next five years. That would be an excellent return, but it won't make you rich unless you start with a large investment. To be clear, these are all bullish outlooks for XRP. It's a risky asset, and it may underperform or lose value, so investors should take a cautious approach.

Lyle Daly has positions in BNB, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and Tether. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP. The Motley Fool recommends BNB. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.