Can XRP Flip Bitcoin?

By Sam Daodu

Published September 12, 2026, 5:24pm ET · 3 min read

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A white alarm clock with black numbers and hands is centrally positioned, surrounded by a scattered collection of metallic cryptocurrency coins. The coins are in shades of gold, silver, copper, and dark grey, featuring logos for Bitcoin, Ethereum Classic, Monero, Ripple, Zcash, and Litecoin on a dark, textured background. — An alarm clock sits amidst a diverse collection of physical cryptocurrency coins, symbolizing the critical timing and market anticipation surrounding major financial events in the crypto space. © eamesBot / Shutterstock.com

Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz said on an X Spaces on September 9 that he expects XRP (CRYPTO:XRP) to eventually pass Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) in market value, and he attached a condition to it. XRP trades at $1.36 and Bitcoin near $77,310 as of September 12.

Bitcoin’s market capitalization runs between $1.54 trillion and $1.58 trillion, XRP’s between $85 billion and $89 billion, a difference of about $1.49 trillion. So can XRP flip Bitcoin?

Schwartz Attached One Condition to His Answer

ripple usd-rlusd virtual currency images on digital background. 3d illustrations.

On the X Spaces hosted by ILLY, a listener named Angie asked Schwartz whether XRP could flip Bitcoin. His answer was “Yeah, I do.” Schwartz is Ripple’s CTO Emeritus and an architect of the XRP Ledger, the settlement network that clears XRP transactions and issues the coin.

“It wouldn’t happen from Bitcoin shrinking. It would happen from XRP growing faster than Bitcoin,” he said. Schwartz described a crypto market that keeps expanding, with XRP compounding faster inside it, so both assets rise and XRP rises more.

“I think XRP surging is probably more likely than not,” he said in the same conversation. Schwartz named no price, no timeline, and no level XRP would need to clear on the way, which makes the answer an opinion about direction rather than a number anyone can trade against.

XRP Would Need $24.50 to Match Bitcoin’s Market Cap

Crypto Coins Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple close-up on 100 American Dollars bank notes. Business cryptocurrency background.

Market capitalization is the price of a coin multiplied by the number of coins in circulation, and it’s the standard way traders compare the size of one crypto asset against another. The difference between the two totals is what a flip has to close.

Against 62.7 billion circulating XRP, matching Bitcoin’s current market capitalization would put XRP at about $24.50. The number belongs to the market, not to Schwartz, who never said it.

The figure is 6.4 times XRP’s all-time high of $3.84, set in January 2018 and never reached since. The target also moves, because if Bitcoin’s market capitalization keeps growing, the price XRP needs to catch it rises with it, which is the scenario Schwartz described.

XRP Has Passed a Larger Coin Before

Wide image of Ripple on digital tablet with graph by various coins

In early 2018, XRP briefly became the second-largest cryptocurrency at about $86 billion in market capitalization, above Ethereum at the time. That run came in a bull market and it moved fast, which is why the episode gets cited whenever Schwartz’s condition comes up.

XRP passed Ethereum from about 15% behind. It trails Bitcoin by 18 times. Bitcoin also has spot ETFs, corporate treasuries and settled regulatory status that Ethereum didn’t have back then. A repeat of the 2018 move at the same scale would only return XRP to second place.

What XRP Would Have to Do First

The flip works on the arithmetic only if Schwartz’s condition holds, because XRP has to grow to roughly 18 times its current value to close a $1.49 trillion gap without Bitcoin losing any. That’s years of outperformance, and nothing scheduled before the end of 2026 delivers it. XRP has gained 34.59% over the past month against Bitcoin’s 21.77%, which is the direction Schwartz described but nowhere near the scale.

Several consecutive quarters where XRP’s market capitalization grows faster than Bitcoin’s would be the first visible sign, alongside payment volume on the XRP Ledger that no Bitcoin product competes for. Until then, XRP flipping Bitcoin is unlikely any time soon, and possible only if the whole crypto market keeps expanding and XRP expands faster inside it.

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Sam Daodu

Sam Daodu is a crypto analyst and the editor of 24/7 Wall St.'s Crypto Desk, where he covers Bitcoin, XRP, Ethereum, Solana and the altcoins investors search for most. His work focuses on price levels, spot ETF flows, on-chain data and the regulatory decisions that move crypto markets, written so a first-time buyer and a seasoned trader can both use it.
Sam has written about crypto professionally since 2019 and has published more than 2,000 articles. Before joining 24/7 Wall St., he wrote for crypto media outlets and Web3 companies and ghostwrote for crypto founders and token launches. His analysis is syndicated on Yahoo Finance, MSN and AOL and has been cited by other crypto news sites. He also founded MacLabs Marketing, a content and personal branding agency for crypto founders and executives.
When he isn't reading charts, Sam is usually at the gym or watching One Piece, a series he maintains has better tokenomics than most altcoins.

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