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Is XRP a Better Investment Than Bitcoin Right Now?

By Sam Daodu Published Jun 24, 5:16PM EDT

Quick Read

XRP and Bitcoin aren't really rivals you pick between, but more like two different kinds of bets. With Bitcoin, you're buying the established store of value, with a hard 21-million cap, and more than $55 billion in ETF money behind it. With XRP, you're buying a growth bet on Ripple winning cross-border payments and getting clear U.S. rules, on a token whose supply grows every month.
XRP's roughly $65 billion size next to Bitcoin's $1.2 trillion is both its appeal and its risk, because a smaller asset, most times, swings more on the way up or down. The same trait that lets it climb higher when money flows in also makes it fall deeper when money leaves, which is why XRP is down about 70% from its peak while Bitcoin is down about 53%.
Right now, Bitcoin's next move depends on the Fed and where this cycle bottoms, while XRP's depends on the CLARITY Act passing before the August recess.
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Is XRP a Better Investment Than Bitcoin Right Now? — © Andrey_Popov / Shutterstock.com

If you’ve got cash to put to work and you’re weighing XRP (CRYPTO:XRP) against Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) right now, you’ve probably already searched for it and gotten the same flat answer everywhere. Bitcoin is the safe one, XRP is the risky one, and it all depends on your risk tolerance. That’s not wrong, exactly, but it’s a dodge that hands the hard part straight back to you.

Both coins are deep in the red right now, with XRP trading near $1.05 and Bitcoin hovering below $60,000 yet again. So, both cryptos are way below their 2025 highs. But what the shrug misses is that XRP and Bitcoin aren’t even the same bet, and right now each one is waiting on a completely different clock. Once you see what each one is built on, the better buy for you gets a lot clearer.

Why XRP and Bitcoin Aren’t the Same Bet

Ripple XRP coin on bitcoins background, cryptocurrency investing concept.

XRP and Bitcoin are totally different types of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin’s whole case rests on scarcity. There will only ever be 21 million coins and the new supply gets cut in half again at the Bitcoin halving sometime in April 2028. And over the past two years, the biggest money movers in the world—large Wall Street institutions—have started treating Bitcoin as digital gold. That’s why spot Bitcoin ETFs have pulled in more than $55 billion since they launched in early 2024.

Moreover, every previous time Bitcoin has sold off, it has eventually clawed its way back to a new high. It’s no guarantee the next recovery looks the same, but it’s a track record XRP doesn’t have yet. XRP, by contrast, works nothing like that, because its price isn’t built on scarcity at all.

The XRP price depends on whether Ripple wins at cross-border payments and whether U.S. lawmakers give the token a clear legal status. And instead of getting scarcer over time, XRP’s supply grows every month, since Ripple unlocks up to a billion tokens from escrow and puts most of them back, but not all. Around 38 billion XRP are still locked away, set to keep trickling out for about nine more years.

On top of that, Ripple doesn’t even need XRP to succeed. Only about 40% of the institutions on its network settle in the token, and Ripple’s own stablecoin, RLUSD, now handles a large share of settlement without touching XRP at all. So when you buy XRP, you’re betting that a specific list of things goes right for it, not just that the asset keeps doing what it always has.

XRP’s Size Cuts Both Ways

BTC Bitcoin and XRP Ripple Coins Between Casino Chips. Entertainment and Modern Blockchain Payments Concept.

A lot of crypto fanatics would ask why anyone would pick XRP over Bitcoin. The answer is its size. XRP is worth about $65 billion today, while Bitcoin is worth around $1.2 trillion, which is roughly 18 times more. That staggering difference is the whole reason XRP can post bigger percentage gains, as the same dollar of new money moves a far smaller asset much further.

For XRP to double from its current price, the money coming in only has to match its current size. What that means is that the market needs to inject another $65 billion in market cap. Take Bitcoin, for example. For BTC to double, the market has to find another $1.2 trillion—its entire value—all over again.

But the catch is that the smaller size cuts both ways. The same trait that lets XRP outrun Bitcoin on the way up makes it fall further on the way down. From their peaks, Bitcoin is down about 53% while XRP has dropped around 70%. And that’s the pattern we keep seeing every time the market has dropped this year. Bitcoin now trades like a blue-chip that moves in measured steps, while XRP behaves more like a small-cap stock that swings wildly on the way up or down.

So there’s no version where XRP is the safer coin and the higher-returning one at the same time. The bigger gains and the bigger losses both come from the same thing, its small size, so you can’t take one without considering the other.

Bitcoin Waits on the Fed and XRP on Congress

Crypto currency coin set collection, bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin, ripple. Digital currency. Cryptocurrency. Silver and golden coins with bitcoin, ripple, litecoin and ethereum symbol.

The crypto Fear and Greed Index has dropped into extreme fear, with Bitcoin back under $60,000 after first breaking that level earlier this month for the first time since late 2024. Neither coin is falling based on its fundamentals, but because nervous investors are pulling money out of crypto across the board. Still, each coin’s next move depends on something completely different.

Bitcoin’s Clock is the Fed and the Cycle

For Bitcoin, it’s the Federal Reserve. With inflation still sticky and rate cuts looking unlikely for now, Bitcoin has started moving with the wider financial markets more than with anything crypto-specific. Deutsche Bank pinned this month’s drop on a mix of a hawkish Fed, money leaving its ETFs, and capital chasing AI stocks instead.

There’s also the four-year cycle to weigh. We’re now in the third year after the April 2024 halving—historically the weak stretch—and analysts like Benjamin Cowen think the cycle low may not arrive until late this year, possibly down in the $50,000s. Others argue the ETFs have broken that old pattern for good, but either way, buying Bitcoin today means getting a proven asset at a discounted price, and the main risk is just that you’re early..

XRP’s Clock is the Crypto Structure Bill

XRP is a different animal, because its next big move hangs on a crypto market structure bill. The Digital Asset CLARITY Act would permanently make XRP a digital commodity, clearing away the legal uncertainty that has hung over the token for years. The bill is currently on the Senate calendar, with many targeting passage before the Senate’s August recess.

However, passage is far from certain. The bill still needs 60 votes in the Senate, and talks stalled over ethics rules in June. If it does get through, Standard Chartered and JPMorgan estimate $4 billion to $8 billion could pour into XRP ETFs. And XRP’s own ETF demand has quietly held up in the meantime, taking in money even on days when bigger coins bled, which shows the interest is there and waiting on a green light..

Should You Buy XRP or Bitcoin Right Now?

For most people, the honest answer is that Bitcoin is the one to own first. It’s the number one crypto, the lower-risk bet, with the deepest pool of buyers and a supply that keeps tightening on a fixed schedule.

XRP is the better buy right now only in a narrow sense. If you believe the CLARITY Act passes, and you can stomach the deeper swings, XRP could be set up for more upside than BTC. That makes XRP a satellite you add around a Bitcoin core, not a replacement for it.

In the end, this isn’t a contest between the two coins at all, but a choice between two different bets. The one that fits depends on which bet you want to make, which is why plenty of investors hold both in different sizes.

From here, a few things could decide which crypto is the better buy. Watch whether the CLARITY Act clears the Senate this summer, whether the Fed finally starts cutting rates, and whether Bitcoin’s cycle low shows up or the ETF era has quietly buried that old script for good.

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About the Author Sam Daodu →

Sam Daodu is a crypto analyst who's spent nearly a decade making blockchain understandable—no easy task when most whitepapers read like fever dreams. He writes for 24/7 Wall St., covering Bitcoin, altcoins, and crypto market analysis for investors. Before crypto, he was a tech writer (back when explaining "the cloud" was peak innovation). Since 2018, he's written for CoinTelegraph, Yahoo Finance, The Block, Cryptonews, Zypto, Rain, and more—basically anywhere people want crypto news without the headache. Sam runs MacLabs Marketing, a content agency for crypto brands tired of sounding like AI wrote their website. He also publishes free crypto education on his site for Web3 enthusiasts who think "gas fees" is a typo. When he's not writing or staring at charts, Sam's either: - Watching anime (currently convinced One Piece has better tokenomics than most altcoins) - At the gym sculpting himself into a Greek god - Listening to the music your mum warned you only bad boys listen to Connect: LinkedIn | Email | MacLabs Marketing