Ripple XRP registered notable gains early in 2023 before sliding into a prolonged bear market that has seen the asset plunge over 20% off its yearly high. Yet some optimistic analysts occasionally float eye-popping long-term price targets like $771.
XRP is the sixth-largest cryptocurrency globally in terms of market cap. However, the coin has suffered primarily due to the SEC and its lawsuit. Despite the lawsuit, the XRP team continues to defend the SEC’s allegations. The coin is currently hovering around the $0.5 level. Let us analyze the one element predicted to push the price by 1000x.
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What can push XRP to $771?
In short, Ripple XRP would likely need to capture tremendous value from anticipated exponential growth in the adoption of its associated XRP Ledger (XRPL). The analysis underpinning lofty $700+ predictions assumes XRP handles 20% of payments flowing through XRPL as the network processes $50 trillion in annual transaction volume by the end of 2025.
The logic comes courtesy of Archax CEO Graham Rodford, a proponent of XRPL scaling to handle tremendous throughput as blockchain achieves widespread institutional and commercial implementation over the coming years. Rodford believes secular crypto adoption could propel XRPL’s yearly volume to $50 trillion in just a few years.
Under those circumstances, if XRP secured one-fifth of total payments on XRPL, demand for the token would skyrocket exponentially. Researchers from Athey and Mitchnick then calculated a hypothetical $771 XRP price target.
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Under this admittedly optimistic scenario, researchers forecast XRP appreciating over 154,100% from today’s $0.50 to tag $771 at some point in the next two years should the situation align favorably.
However, with XRPL volume still fairly muted presently, the rationale illustrates just how outsized growth in utility and adoption would need to accelerate for the coin to conceivably reach triple-digit prices.