Former CTO of Ripple, David Schwartz, recently opened a can of worms on X, as he challenged the ambitious forecast of $10,000 XRP in ten years. Meanwhile, exchange data from Binance shows that XRP withdrawals have slowly eclipsed deposits, giving something to the bulls to hang on to.
Ripple CTO shows little faith in $10,000 XRP prediction
Responding to a thread on X pertaining to XRP’s price forecast, Schwartz, the former Ripple CTO, said that even if there was a 1 percent chance of XRP hitting $10,000 in the next 10 years, then the cryptocurrency would have been at least around $20 today.
However, XRP currently trades just slightly above $1.4, holding a total market cap of approximately $87.04 billion.
For XRP to trade at $20 today, its market cap will have to reach at least $1.2 trillion, which would make it the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, trailing Bitcoin.
Similarly, if one unit of XRP ever reached a price of $10,000, then the digital asset’s total market cap would be around $617 trillion – a practically impossible figure. For comparison, the total market cap of gold currently sits around $31 trillion.
Exchange data shows positive signs for XRP
Despite Schwartz’ pessimism surrounding XRP, fresh exchange data from Binance shows that bulls may slowly be gaining ground.
Following a period of major activity slump from late March to mid-April, there is a clear shift in XRP trading activity on Binance.
Recently, the average number of XRP deposit transactions to Binance surged to around 308,500, while the average number of XRP withdrawals from the exchange stood at 325,600. The following chart shows this dynamic over the past month.
The increase in withdrawals, coupled with simmering deposits, shows that there is a clear recovery in engagement on the XRP network after a period of calm. Current data shows that withdrawals continue to outpace the deposits, with a difference of -17,000.
The negative reading shows that withdrawals still exceed deposits, suggesting that investors are moving their funds off exchanges. This could be either for long-term holding or to reduce their intention to sell in the immediate term.
To conclude, the narrowing gap between XRP withdrawals and deposits confirms an improvement in market sentiment – especially when taken with a wider recovery in network activity.