On January 30, Ripple’s CTO Emeritus, David Schwartz, directly addressed rampant community speculation about XRP’s price potential.
He applied a fundamental financial logic to argue that the token’s current market value contradicts the wildly optimistic predictions shared online.
His comments highlight a persistent divide between aspirational community narratives and the sober probabilities reflected in trading activity.
A Lesson in Expected Value
The discussion began with a user pleading for Schwartz to tell supporters that XRP would not reach $50 or $100. Schwartz declined to make an absolute prediction, recalling he once thought XRP hitting $0.25 was unlikely. However, he offered a clear framework for evaluating such claims.
He said that if a meaningful share of rational investors truly believed XRP had a 10% chance of hitting $100 in the near future, selling at current levels would make little sense.
“If many rational people believed that there was a 10% chance that XRP hit $100 within a few years, they definitely wouldn’t sell very much today at much less than $10,” Schwartz wrote on X.
According to him, those investors would buy aggressively, quickly exhausting supply at lower prices. But the fact that XRP continues to trade far below that level suggests that very few market participants hold that belief with enough confidence to commit capital.
Schwartz added that anyone claiming otherwise “is not telling the truth,” framing the issue as a gap between online claims and actual behavior. He encouraged readers to apply the same math themselves across different probabilities and time frames.
This perspective was echoed by other community figures, including XrpArthur, a proponent of the Ripple token. They wrote that people convinced of a $100 XRP “clearly don’t have enough money (or real conviction) to accumulate heavily,” warning that exaggerated targets have damaged community psychology.
Market Reality Versus Long-Term Narratives
Currently, XRP is trading near $1.75, reflecting a drop of over 8% in the past week and about 44% over the last year. This places it in what some analysts call one of its longest consolidation phases, lasting approximately 434 days.
The technical landscape remains challenging, with XRP trading about 25% below its 200-day moving average, and short-term momentum indicators suggesting continued consolidation. However, this price action exists alongside some positive developments, including U.S. spot XRP ETFs, which saw nearly $92 million in net inflows in January, according to SoSoValue data.
At the same time, Santiment reported that 42 new wallets holding at least one million XRP have appeared since the start of 2026, suggesting quiet accumulation by large holders despite weak short-term trends.
Meanwhile, firms like 21Shares have published measured 2026 outlooks, with a base-case price target near $2.45, contingent on factors like sustained ETF inflows and adoption of Ripple’s stablecoin. This analysis, combined with Schwartz’s expected value argument, presents a more grounded counterpoint to the extreme price forecasts that frequently circulate within parts of the XRP community.
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