A theory circulating in the XRP community suggests the token may already be trading at significantly higher prices on private institutional ledgers, far removed from the public market price visible on exchanges today.
The idea, which has resurfaced in community discussions, points to occasional price glitches that have appeared on exchange feeds over the years, including one from June 2022 that briefly showed XRP at $1,000. Believers argue these are not errors but brief glimpses of what institutions are testing privately before any public price discovery event occurs.
Also Read : Ripple (XRP) Price Prediction 2026, 2027-2030: Will XRP Reach $5?
The theory draws on comments made by Bob Way, a former Ripple employee, who described in 2019 how XRP could function as a neutral bridge asset sitting at the centre of a massive global liquidity pool connecting over 180 fiat currencies, along with gold, silver, and other digital assets. Proponents argue that for XRP to fulfil that role at the scale of global cross-border settlements, the price would need to be orders of magnitude higher than current levels to provide sufficient liquidity without requiring enormous volumes of the token to be used per transaction.
The speculation has been further fuelled by comparisons between the XRP Ledger and Ethereum across real-world asset metrics. Supporters cite data showing XRPL reached its first 400 million tokenised real-world assets in 15 months compared to Ethereum’s 36 months, and that 90-day inflows into XRPL recently stood at $1.9 billion versus $1.6 billion for Ethereum. RLUSD supply on XRPL has also narrowly surpassed its Ethereum counterpart.
Standard Chartered’s recent processing of a cross-border remittance to India in 37 seconds, with Westpac facilitating the transaction, added another data point for those watching Ripple’s expanding footprint in global payment corridors.
It is important to note there is no verified evidence that XRP is trading privately at any price other than its publicly quoted market rate. The theory remains speculative and unconfirmed. However, it continues to gain traction among long-term holders who believe the current market price significantly undervalues the token’s eventual role in global financial infrastructure.
