3 scenarios for the Ripple stock price from realistic to unlikely

Since early November, XRP has re-entered the crypto world's spotlight, much to the enthusiasm of many investors. In a short time, the Ripple coin saw an increase of more than 400 percent and reached a new record high of US$3.37 in January. Despite recent price corrections against the backdrop of Trump's trade tariff tumult, crypto analysts outdo each other with their XRP predictions. At first glance, it is often unclear whether these are pure wishful thinking or realistic assumptions after all. We examined three scenarios. How much XRP does a person need to become a millionaire?

XRP as crypto sensation of the year 2024

In the first half of the past crypto year, there seemed little to indicate that XRP would still play an important role among the top tokens. During the bullrun of 2017/18, Ripple was one of the leading tokens, but the following six years brought major challenges. In particular, the legal battle with the U.S. SEC, which has continued since December 2020, depressed the XRP price, causing Bitcoin, Ethereum and other crypto-assets to perform much better.

Other large crypto companies such as Coinbase or Kraken also suffered from the restrictive policies of the SEC led by Gary Gensler. But to Ripple Labs, the authority had a particular focus. Although the company won a first partial victory in the summer of 2023 when federal judge Analisa Torres determined that XRP when sold to private investors is "not a security," the legal drama continued, and after a brief breakout, the XRP stock price plummeted.

In January, Ripple shone again with a nearly 50 percent price increase, making investors' hearts beat faster as it reached a new record high. At the time of writing, the third-largest cryptocurrency is trading at US$2.53, down 17 percent from last week. The background are the shocks caused by DeepSeek and Trump's tariff offensive, which are affecting many altcoins.

So likely are these three Ripple coin scenarios

An initial optimistic but realistic forecast for the XRP share price is given by analysts at Coin Bureau in a video: US$7 by the end of 2025. With this, Ripple would follow Ethereum's price movement, albeit with a cycle lag. Fundamental factors that would boost the price by another 176 percent to US$7 include a final settlement of the SEC lawsuit, increasing adoption of the XRP Ledger in the banking industry and the approval of the first Ripple ETFs. Given the current circulating 57.7 billion XRP, the market capitalization in this case would be US$404 billion. By comparison, Ethereum currently stands at US$340 billion.

Even more optimistic is crypto-influencer BitBoy X. He expected that Ripple not only becomes the best performer of the current bullrun, but also significantly outpaces Ethereum's market capitalization. As a reason, he cites a potentially publicly notable Ripple Labs IPO. His XRP prediction: up to US$20. If the BRICS countries were to fall back on XRP as a liquidity payment solution for their expected reserve currency, the possibilities are endless. In this second scenario, XRP market capitalization would reach US$1.15 trillion. No cryptocurrency has ever reached this milestone except Bitcoin.

The third forecast, from crypto analyst EGRAG CRYPTO, speaks of a utopian vision, as in an X post he states that Ripple's long-term market capitalization could rise to as much as US$4 trillion. This would double Bitcoin's current market capitalization, make XRP more valuable than any company in the world and be accompanied by an XRP exchange rate of a sensational US$70.

To reach this price, Ripple would probably have to be both included in the largest funds of BlackRock, Fidelity, etc. and be part of a crypto reserve of various nations. While one should never say never, this scenario seems mostly a bold thought exercise at the moment.

These dangers XRP investors should know about

Despite all the excitement surrounding XRP's recent comeback, the risks associated with the Ripple coin should not be forgotten. The fact that XRP gained more than US$100 billion in market capitalization in a very short time and ousted Solana from third place in the crypto ranking also means that many positive developments have already been priced in. What if the legal battle with the SEC takes longer than expected? Or if the Ripple ETF applications are rejected? Also, key Layer-1 competitors Ethereum and Solana could build new momentum and push XRP out of the spotlight.

Moreover, there is regular criticism from the crypto community for the high centralization of XRP. Skeptical voices warn that the company Ripple Labs still has full control over the network. Therefore, investors should not assume too surely that the base case of US$7 per XRP token is only a matter of time. Compared to Bitcoin, Ripple is performing weaker in the long run than many crypto investors would suspect.