XRP has never failed lofty price targets, but the latest comments about a possible move to $10,000 have prompted an immediate response from one of the most well-known voices in the Ripple ecosystem. David Schwartz, former Chief Technology Officer of Ripple and one of the original architects of the XRP Ledger, has withdrawn the idea by pointing to a simple market demand. If serious capital truly believed in even a remote chance of that outcome, why is XRP still trading at its current levels?
David Schwartz disputes the $10,000 XRP predictions
The XRP community has long been home to some of the most ambitious price predictions in crypto. Numbers like $10,000, $20,000 and up circulate regularly social media, often supported by the prospects of financial institutions adopting the XRP Ledger to facilitate payments.
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David Schwartz, who left as Ripple CTO in December 2025, addressed the XRP $10,000 forecast head-on during a discussion on X earlier this week. The motivation for Schwartz’s comments was a question from an Some market commentators have used the model to support very high projections for digital assets, including XRP.
According to Schwartz If there were a few very rich and very rational people who truly believed there was a 1% chance that XRP could reach $10,000 within 10 years, they would have bid XRP up to at least $20 today. A move to $20 would still be huge from XRP’s current level, but it’s nowhere near $10,000.
The silence order claim
At the time of writing it is XRP is trading at $1.41with a market capitalization of $86.7 billion and a circulating supply of approximately 61.8 billion tokens. At $10,000 per XRP, that same circulating supply would imply a valuation of approximately $618 trillion. Therefore, the point Schwartz is making is that even a small probability of such a huge future price and market should attract aggressive buying from major investors, if it were credible.
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The conversation didn’t stop at XRP price predictions. Schwartz has also made suggestions that he may not be allowed to speak fully about XRP or Ripple. He noted that he never signed an agreement that required him to lie, adding that he would choose silence or avoidance over giving an answer that he did not believe was truthful and accurate.
Schwartz also addressed claims that Ripple possesses an undisclosed mechanism that will one day be revealed and push the XRP price above $100. “First, circumstances have changed so much that it’s hard to imagine that we’ve held this magic switch for so long and it’s still waiting to go,” he said.
Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time Schwartz has spoken out against ultra-bullish XRP price predictions. Back in January, he pointed out even a modest chance of XRP reaching $100 within a few years would already be reflected in the current price.
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