XRP to $24.97? Ripple CTO Says Flipping Bitcoin Is 'More Likely Than Not'

For every altcoin holder watching Bitcoin's dominance, David Schwartz's $24.97 'flip' scenario maps the exact conditions under which XRP would become the market's top asset: roughly 18x price growth without any Bitcoin decline. That's a stress test for XRP Ledger throughput and spot ETF inflows, not just a bull-market prediction.

On September 9, 2026, Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz told listeners on an X Spaces hosted by ILLY that XRP flipping Bitcoin is "probably more likely than not." The comment, reported by 24/7 Wall St and syndicated by AOL, immediately sparked attention because of the math required. XRP trades near $1.38, while matching Bitcoin's market cap at current levels would put XRP at roughly $24.97. That target represents about an 18-fold increase from today's price and roughly 6.5 times XRP's January 2018 all-time high of $3.84. Schwartz did not provide a timeline or set his own price target, framing the possibility as a product of overall digital asset market expansion rather than Bitcoin losing value.

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XRP trades near $1.38, while matching Bitcoin's market cap at current levels would put XRP at roughly $24.97.

The math behind the flip scenario is both simple and daunting. For XRP to overtake Bitcoin, its market cap must equal or exceed Bitcoin's. At the current price of $1.38, XRP's implied market cap is already substantial, but Bitcoin's market cap remains so much larger that matching it would require an 18x price increase. Crucially, Schwartz clarified that Bitcoin does not have to shrink for this to happen. Instead, XRP would need to grow faster than Bitcoin over the same period. This is the key distinction: the flip is a relative growth story, not a bearish Bitcoin thesis. Within a growing total cryptocurrency market, both assets could appreciate, but XRP's percentage gains would need to dramatically outpace Bitcoin's.

The conditions for such outperformance, according to the coverage, center on real utility rather than speculative rotation. Schwartz pointed to greater usage and adoption of the XRP Ledger as the primary driver. The AOL version of the article identified two specific signals that would move the $24.50 target from thought experiment toward realistic objective: XRP Ledger throughput growth and U.S. spot ETF traction. Those are measurable, operational indicators. If XRP Ledger processes more transactions and attracts institutional capital through regulated U.S. spot exchange-traded products, the fundamental case for XRP to rise faster than Bitcoin becomes stronger. The challenge is that both signals require sustained network demand and regulatory execution, not merely a broad crypto rally.

For market participants, the $24.97 figure is best understood as a valuation boundary or scenario marker, not a forecast. Schwartz gave no timeline and no personal price target, which is notable for a senior figure with deep technical knowledge of the XRP Ledger. The lack of specificity suggests he was discussing a probabilistic outcome over an unspecified horizon. The 18x move is not impossible in crypto—XRP itself has traded through multiple orders of magnitude over its history—but each additional multiple becomes harder to achieve as market cap grows. A move from $1.38 to $24.97 would imply an enormous expansion in XRP's market cap, likely requiring hundreds of billions of dollars in fresh capital or a corresponding expansion of the broader digital asset market.