Could XRP Ever Be Worth $30? Here's What Would Need to Happen

Business Insider

4 days ago

It's a question that's been thrown around for years, usually in Telegram chats, late-night Twitter threads, and Reddit posts: Could XRP ever hit $30?
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Right now, XRP trades around $3. For it to hit $30, it would need a tenfold increase in price. That's not impossible in crypto, but when we're talking about top-ten coins with massive market caps, the story changes. Let's break down what would need to happen for XRP (XRP-USD) to make that kind of jump, and whether it's even feasible.
First, Let's Do the Math
There are about 55 billion XRP in circulation, though technically the total supply is capped at 100 billion. Assuming 55 billion are actively trading, a $30 XRP would put its market cap at $1.65 trillion. If all 100 billion were unlocked and valued at $30, that's a $3 trillion valuation.
That would make XRP worth more than any public company on earth. Apple (AAPL), currently the most valuable, sits around $3.2 trillion. You'd also be in the ballpark of entire GDPs; for reference, India's GDP is about $3.7 trillion.
Then, Let's Consider Demand: Who's Actually Buying All that XRP?
To get to $30, XRP would need an absolutely absurd amount of real, sustained demand. And not just from crypto traders flipping coins. We'd be talking about governments, central banks, major financial institutions, and payment networks all locking up XRP in meaningful quantities.
Ripple's pitch is that XRP becomes the backbone of cross-border payments, a sort of liquidity bridge for financial institutions. But even if that narrative plays out, we'd still need trillions in volume flowing through XRP on a daily basis. That's not what's happening now.
In fact, daily XRP volume today is only in the single-digit billions, and a large portion of that is likely speculative. The real-world usage would need to explode and be sustained to even justify half of that $30 target.
Next, Let's Look at Supply Dynamics: Is XRP Scarce Enough?
XRP's supply model is a double-edged sword. It's deflationary, but slowly. Some XRP is burned on every transaction, but not at a rate that seriously eats into the supply. It's not like Ethereum, where network usage can actually flip issuance negative.
For XRP to rise, either usage has to skyrocket (increasing the burn rate) or huge amounts of XRP would need to be permanently locked up or taken out of circulation — think long-term custody, central bank vaults, or tokenized treasury usage.
Right now, Ripple holds about 40 billion XRP in escrow, releasing 1 billion per month. While most of it gets re-locked, the supply overhang still weighs on price. To get to $30, the market would need to absorb this release without flinching, or Ripple would need to drastically change its release strategy.
Finally, Zoom Out: What Kind of Market Environment Could Get Us There?
It's not just about XRP's fundamentals. A $30 XRP likely implies the entire crypto market is in a hyper-bull cycle, probably topping $20–30 trillion in total value. For XRP to take a large slice of that pie, it would need to outperform most other assets and cement itself as a true utility token, not just a speculative vehicle.
Think of a world where tokenized assets are the norm, CBDCs are settling through private rails, and cross-border remittances move via on-chain bridges. In that scenario, XRP's use case becomes real infrastructure. But that also assumes regulators are friendly, global adoption accelerates, and Ripple delivers flawlessly on execution.
So, Could It Happen?
Technically, yes. But it would require a perfect storm: global adoption, massive use-case execution, regulatory clarity, and likely a fundamental transformation in how the world moves money. It's not impossible, but it's not likely either, at least not anytime soon.