Peter Brandt has been trading since 1975, and in December 2025 he told his 1.2 million followers on X that XRP (CRYPTO:XRP) and silver bulls are the most easily baited traders he has come across in all those years. XRP was trading at $1.86 back then, and it has dropped 42% to $1.08 since.
Thomas Laresca, a former Wall Street trader of 25 years and a vocal XRP advocate, wasn’t having it. He challenged Brandt to a 100,000 XRP bet, worth about $108,000 today, arguing that an analyst who calls a group of investors easy marks should back that call with his own capital. Brandt turned it down, saying he takes very large bets every day and has no time for ego plays. So whose read on XRP has held up?
The 500,000 XRP Bet Peter Brandt Turned Down
Brandt has needled XRP holders for a while. Before the December post, he had called them one of the two most obsessed perma-bull groups he had come across, and he has kept returning to the same theme since.
Laresca’s answer was to put a number on it. He offered Brandt 200,000 XRP, split into one bet settling in six months and another settling in a year, and his argument was that price predictions cost nothing to make while backing them with money is the hard part. If XRP holders really are that easy to fool, taking the other side of their trade should be free money.
Brandt declined on May 11, telling Laresca he takes very large bets every day and that a small side bet is “stupid and waste of energy.” When Laresca posted the full terms a week later, 100,000 XRP settling at $2.10 in six months and another 100,000 over a year, Brandt turned him down again, saying he trades real markets at real exchanges rather than side bets “like some back alley nickle thrower.“
Laresca then raised the offer to 500,000 XRP, worth about $535,000 today, and asked Brandt what his excuse was now. He also pointed at Brandt’s Bitcoin record, saying he had called the coin to $280,000, then $25,000, then back to $250,000 inside about a year. Brandt has not taken any version of the bet, and Laresca put the 500,000 XRP challenge to him again today.
What the Wall Street Veteran Says Brandt Is Missing About XRP
Laresca’s argument is that XRP’s price today says nothing about what Ripple is building underneath it. He says to judge XRP on the technology and adoption being built around it rather than on where the price is today.
The evidence he points to is Ripple assembling the parts of institutional finance in one place. A bank moving into digital assets has traditionally needed one company for custody, another for stablecoins, another for prime brokerage, another for treasury, and another again for tokenization and settlement. Ripple bought prime broker Hidden Road for $1.25 billion and renamed it Ripple Prime, launched the RLUSD stablecoin, and acquired the custody firms that serve banks.
Ripple added two more pieces this week, investing on August 3 in two British companies that handle fund record-keeping and collateral. That came five days after Aviva Investors launched a tokenized share class of its US Dollar Liquidity Fund on the XRP Ledger with Central Bank of Ireland’s approval.
Peter Brandt Shorted XRP, Then Turned Bullish, Then Mocked Its Holders
Brandt’s record on XRP is not the one-way bearishness his December post suggests. In early October 2025 he named XRP his top short candidate with a target near $2.20 while it traded around $2.79, and XRP fell to $1.57 in the October 10 crash. He posted that his target was reached and his profits taken.
However, three days later he turned bullish, sharing a chart going back to 2013 and asking whether there had ever been a purer long-term chart, with XRP near $2.64. He stayed bullish into November, naming XRP and Bitcoin Cash on November 27 as the two coins he expected to rally in the coming months, even with the rest of the market in a bear phase. Then came the December post calling XRP holders easily baited, with XRP at $1.86.
XRP trades at $1.07 today, so the trader who shorted XRP into October and mocked its holders in December has been right on price both times, and the same trader’s bullish calls in October and November have lost money.
What This Argument Means for the XRP Price
The argument between the two men changes nothing about what XRP is worth. Brandt has been right about the price, and Laresca has been right that Ripple is building something serious, and both can hold at once, because the buildout has not reached the token. Ripple’s announcement of this week’s investments named RLUSD as the cash leg for settlement rather than XRP.
Laresca’s objection was never about the price. He has said he would have no problem with Brandt disliking XRP or with the two of them simply disagreeing, and that what crossed the line was going after the people who own it. The bet is his way of asking Brandt to put money behind the insult, and after three versions of the offer, Brandt still has not.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Top Gaining Stocks
Top Losing Stocks