Ripple CTO emeritus David Schwartz says XRP could eventually overtake Bitcoin by market capitalization, but he believes such a “flippening” would come from XRP expanding rapidly rather than Bitcoin collapsing.
Asked during an X Spaces discussion whether he genuinely believed XRP could flip Bitcoin, Schwartz answered yes, while adding an important qualification.
“It wouldn’t happen from Bitcoin shrinking,” he said, according to coverage of the discussion. “It would happen from XRP growing faster than Bitcoin.”
Schwartz argued that the broader digital-asset market could expand substantially, allowing both cryptocurrencies to appreciate while XRP captures a larger share because of the XRP Ledger’s speed and functionality.
That makes his statement less of a Bitcoin-collapse prediction and more of a bet on relative XRP adoption.
XRP Would Need Roughly $25 at Today’s Bitcoin Valuation
The current gap remains enormous.
CoinCodex puts Bitcoin’s market capitalization at approximately $1.58 trillion, while XRP stands near $88.9 billion. That makes Bitcoin roughly 17.7 times larger by market value.
With about 62.74 billion XRP circulating, matching Bitcoin’s current market cap would imply an XRP price near $25.10, assuming Bitcoin itself did not rise.
That is not a price forecast. If Bitcoin appreciates, XRP’s required flippening price would move higher as well.
XRP currently trades around $1.42–$1.44, meaning the gap is substantial despite recent relative strength.
Yet the idea is not entirely without historical precedent.
On Jan. 1, 2018, XRP’s market cap reached about $92.6 billion against Bitcoin’s $229.1 billion, roughly 40% of Bitcoin’s value at the time. XRP was then the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency.
Today, its market cap is only about 5.6% of Bitcoin’s.
ETF Demand Gives Schwartz’s Argument a Fresh Angle
The comments arrive as regulated XRP investment products are attracting unusually resilient demand.
U.S. spot XRP ETFs recorded $1.55 million of inflows on Sept. 8 while Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana funds all posted outflows. Latest XRP ETF analysis shows that the divergence follows a broader institutional buying trend.
XRP ETFs previously attracted $110.49 million in their strongest week of 2026, taking cumulative inflows to roughly $1.66 billion.
Institutional participation has also expanded, with Goldman Sachs emerging as the largest disclosed XRP ETF holder at roughly $87.4 million.
XRP also enters the debate with a clearer U.S. regulatory position following the end of Ripple’s long-running SEC litigation, an advantage explored in our recent regulatory analysis.
Schwartz’s comment therefore describes a possibility, not an imminent forecast. The numbers make that clear.
For XRP to flip Bitcoin at today’s valuations, it would need not merely to outperform BTC: it would need to close a market-cap gap of roughly $1.49 trillion.