Ripple CTO Ties XRP's Value Case to XRPL Adoption, Not Hype

Ripple CTO emeritus David Schwartz spent Oct. 23 on X making one argument loud and clear: a booming XRP Ledger should mean real demand for XRP. He pushed back hard on the notion that XRPL could morph into a major financial platform while its native token sits on the sidelines. Schwartz called that scenario 'very unlikely.' His logic, per ZyCrypto: low fees and reliable operation pull value onto the ledger, and XRP captures a slice of it through perks no other asset on the network can match.

The short list of those perks matters. XRP is the only counterparty-free asset any account can accept, everyone has to hold it to pay transaction fees, and it doubles as a liquidity bridge between assets. There's a routing angle too — XRPL's built-in decentralized exchange will send trades through XRP whenever that beats swapping two assets directly. If the ledger hosts more markets and tokenized assets, Schwartz expects XRP to get more of that connective work.

He even floated a Bitcoin what-if. Say BTC became the dominant settlement asset — wrapped or bridged versions of it could still trade on XRPL, handing XRP a role in greasing those exchanges.

The adoption story isn't just talk. Santiment reported last Thursday that the XRP Ledger hit a record 8.24 million non-empty wallets, while daily wallet creation jumped to 4,772 — its fifth-largest spike since March. Translation: people kept showing up even while the price bounced around.

Santiment has its eye on $1.40 as the number that counts. A sustained push above that level could crack the door toward $1.50 if wallet growth holds strong. Flip it around and a slide below $1.30 alongside slowing wallet creation would dull the short-term adoption signal.

Not everyone is thinking in dimes. Analyst Egrag Crypto recently argued XRP looks primed to stretch toward a macro target above $15, leaning on a chart pattern built from earlier stretches of price compression and breakout. At press time, XRP was trading at $1.31, up 2.91% in the past 24 hours.