David Schwartz says demand for blockchain strategies is growing as Mason Versluis challenges extreme XRP price forecasts.
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Key Takeaways
David Schwartz says Ripple once downplayed XRP’s role in payments, but customers now actively want blockchain strategies.
Mason Versluis expects $5–$10 in XRP’s next bull run while rejecting four-figure expectations for that cycle.
Schwartz sees opportunities in Ripple’s acquisitions and AI settlement, but offers no XRP price prediction.
Ripple once persuaded customers to use XRP by keeping the technology in the background.
Now, financial institutions increasingly want their own blockchain strategies, according to David Schwartz.
The shift comes as XRP supporters debate how much adoption could lift the token’s price, with commentator Mason Versluis backing a future $5–$10 range while challenging more extreme expectations.
Speaking to Thinking Crypto at Nasdaq, Ripple’s CTO emeritus outlined XRP opportunities in institutional finance, AI payments and lending.
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Schwartz said Ripple’s early sales approach emphasized how little customers needed to change to benefit from XRP-powered payments.
“We basically just didn’t tell them,” he said, immediately clarifying: “I mean, we told them.”
The message was that customers could continue making payments as usual while the technology ran in the background.
“You don’t have to do anything different,” he said.
“You just make the payment.”
His remarks concerned simplifying the experience and downplaying the technology.
“At first, we almost had to hide it,” Schwartz said.
Now, customers increasingly want blockchain strategies and are interested in deploying the technology themselves, he added, making sales easier.
Schwartz also credited Coinbase’s public listing with changing how traditional finance viewed crypto.
A publicly traded business gave institutions a familiar way to assess an industry whose trading volumes and valuations they might otherwise distrust.
“There’s something that can make real money for a real company doing real business, solving real problems,” he said.
XRP to $10? Versluis Rejects $1,000 Bull-Run Calls
Schwartz’s account of growing institutional interest comes as crypto commentator Mason Versluis challenges some of the XRP community’s most aggressive price predictions.
In an Oct. 17 video, Versluis argued that holders should temper their expectations for the next bull run.
“The next XRP bull run will not be $500. You can expect five or $10.”
He criticized creators for promoting four-figure targets on short deadlines.
“I’m tired of these idiots propagating $10,000, $1,000 by the end of the year. All of this stupidity.”
Versluis also acknowledged that he previously shared the enthusiasm he now rejects.
“And yes, I used to be one of them. That’s the craziest thing is I’m man enough to admit that my opinion has shifted over the years to be way more realistic.”
However, he stopped short of ruling out those higher prices indefinitely.
“Not saying it couldn’t reach those one day, but the next one you should expect five to $10 conservatively.”
Although Versluis described that range as conservative, it remains an extremely bullish forecast.
Using a circulating supply of 60 billion XRP, prices of $5 and $10 would imply market capitalizations of $300 billion and $600 billion, respectively.
Ripple’s Customers Move Trillions Outside Crypto
Looking ahead to 2027, Schwartz highlighted Ripple’s acquisitions of GTreasury and Hidden Road as an opportunity to bring blockchain services to its existing financial customer base.
Ripple is combining those businesses and looking to sell additional products to their customers, he said.
“I’m excited to see us cross-selling those products to other customers and them getting this benefit, because they’re moving trillions of dollars through rails that don’t go anywhere near crypto.”
Schwartz explained the opportunity comes from having those customers on Ripple’s platforms and introducing services that could improve how they move money.
AI Agents Could Need XRPL for Settlement
Schwartz also outlined a potential role for the XRP Ledger in an economy where AI agents increasingly make payments.
Rather than assuming every automated purchase would be recorded directly in the ledger, he suggested that other systems could process individual payments before settling outstanding balances.
“I think you might see it move more to, like, a settlement layer,” he said.
Some countries could become net buyers of AI services, while others become net sellers, creating imbalances that need to be resolved.
“You’re gonna need some sort of a neutral ecosystem for settlement,” Schwartz said.
He also imagined AI agents handling everyday financial decisions, such as how much money people should keep readily available.
Without blockchain, he argued, large technology companies could become the intermediaries controlling both access to AI services and the associated payments.
“We got these new sort of gatekeepers emerge,” Schwartz said of the internet’s development.
“And I think that’s gonna happen for money if not for blockchain.”
Why XRPL Does Not Try to Do Everything
Asked why financial institutions should choose the XRP Ledger, Schwartz pointed to its performance and focus on financial services.
“It’s fast, it’s cheap, it’s reliable,” he said.
He positioned XRPL between Bitcoin’s more limited functionality and the broader programmability of Ethereum and Solana.
“It’s not as fixed-function as Bitcoin, but it doesn’t try to do absolutely everything like Ethereum and Solana do.”
Schwartz said that focus makes the ledger suited to activities such as tokenization and payments, while acknowledging that it is unsuitable for some other applications.
His broader ambition is to reduce the effort users spend managing where their money sits.
“I’d rather just have the world where I only have to think about what it’s doing,” he said.
Schwartz Has Also Challenged Triple-Digit XRP Forecasts
Versluis is not alone in questioning ambitious XRP targets.
Schwartz has also previously pushed back against expectations that the token could reach $50–$100 within a few years.
“I don’t feel comfortable saying something like that,” he wrote.
However, he acknowledged that his own judgment had underestimated crypto before, recalling that he began selling XRP at $0.10 and once doubted it would reach $0.25.
In a follow-up, Schwartz questioned whether investors genuinely believed the predictions they promoted.
As CCN previously reported, he argued that investors convinced XRP had a “10% chance of hitting $100 within a few years” would have a strong incentive to buy at substantially lower prices.
He said XRP’s trading price at the time suggested few investors held that belief “with enough confidence to put their money where their mouth is.”
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Kurt Robson is a London-based reporter at CCN, specialising in the fast-moving worlds of crypto and emerging technology. He began his career covering local news in Cornwall after graduating from Falmouth University with First Class Honours in Journalism. There, he cut his teeth on everything from council meetings to missing swans.
He quickly rose through the ranks to become a frontline journalist at several of the UK’s leading national newspapers. Over the years, he has interviewed musicians and celebrities, reported from courtrooms and crime scenes, and secured multiple front-page exclusives.
Following the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kurt shifted his focus to technology journalism—just ahead of the AI boom. With a natural curiosity and a trained eye for emerging trends, he has found a new rhythm in reporting on innovation.
At CCN, Kurt's work focuses on the cutting edge of crypto, blockchain, AI, and the evolving digital world. Drawing on his background in people-first reporting and his deep interest in disruptive tech, Kurt delivers stories that are insightful, entertaining, and human-centric.
