Key Takeaways
- XRPL’s AI payment tracker has passed 12 million transactions, settling roughly 6,886 XRP and 10,744 RLUSD.
- Ripple’s engineering leadership says the network is becoming infrastructure for the “machine economy.”
- The viral $500 XRP scenario depends on sweeping adoption assumptions.
The XRP Ledger’s expanding AI payment activity has given bulls another adoption milestone to celebrate.
However, it has also exposed the gap between the volume of transactions and the demand required to sustain extraordinary price targets.
As of October 5, the XRPL AI Hub recorded 12 million payments, with cumulative settlement of 6,885 XRP and 10,744 RLUSD.
The milestone puts the viral $ 500-by-2035 scenario shared by XRP commentator Vincent Van Code under scrutiny — and it may not hold up.
Millions of Payments, Modest Settlement Totals
The hub recorded an average of 450,667 payments a day over the past week and listed 163 registered merchants.
The payments allow AI agents to purchase services, such as data or AI processing, on a per-request basis.
Each purchase can cost a fraction of a cent, helping explain how millions of transactions have generated relatively small settlement totals.
For XRP investors, more payments demonstrate greater use of the network, but do not automatically mean more XRP buying.
Agents can pay in RLUSD, while the same XRP can circulate through repeated transactions.
Ripple Hails the “Machine Economy”
RippleX engineering head J. Ayo Akinyele recently celebrated the network’s earlier 10-million-payment milestone in an Oct. 1 X post.
“The XRP Ledger is increasingly becoming infrastructure for the machine economy!” he wrote.
He said that the volume is still dominated by “AI agents paying for inference and data,” adding that services were expanding into “financial data, risk, credit, and other agent APIs.”
These payments allow software agents to automatically purchase services, such as accessing a dataset or using an AI model to process a request.
Akinyele said the seven-day payment rate had reached 500,000 a day at the time of his post.
“Pretty incredible to see how quickly this is growing as agents start to autonomously discover, pay for and consume services,” he added.
The hub’s tracked total has since passed 12 million payments.
Viral $500 XRP Price Target
In an April 22 post, XRP community commentator Vincent Van Code shared an AI-generated scenario using large language models, including Grok.
The analyst described a projected range of $400 to $650 or higher by 2035.
“XRP price could hit $500+ by 2035,” the post stated.
The scenario incorporated favorable regulation, Ripple’s expansion, AI adoption, and a larger role for XRP in cross-border finance.
Crypto analyst Sam Daodu argued in a June 21 analysis that a mega target of $500 rests on a flawed relationship between payment activity and token value.
Using approximately 62 billion circulating XRP, he calculated that a $500 price would imply a market capitalization of roughly $31 trillion.
Daodu challenged the argument that XRP’s valuation must eventually match the enormous sums moving through the global cross-border payments industry.
“A payment network carries value from one side to the other, but it doesn’t hold that value on its books,” he wrote.
This is relevant to XRPL’s growing AI payment activity.
A token can be used repeatedly to settle transactions, allowing payment counts to increase without requiring a corresponding increase in the XRP held by users.
AI Payment Milestone Puts $500 XRP Target in Perspective
The contrast between more than 12 million tracked payments and a settlement total of roughly 6,886 XRP offers a reality check on the $500 narrative.
AI adoption was among the biggest assumptions underpinning Van Code’s massive scenario.
The latest figures show that while agents use XRPL payment infrastructure, millions of small transactions can occur without moving large amounts of XRP.
While it is true that micropayments are designed to be inexpensive and the ecosystem could expand substantially, the current figures do not show that growing payment activity is creating the sustained demand for XRP.
XRP Would Need to Rise Nearly 33,000% to Reach $500
With XRP trading at $1.52 at the time of writing, reaching $500 would require a roughly 329-fold increase, a gain of around 32,795%.
Even a rally to $10 would leave XRP needing another 4,900% increase to reach the target.
At $100, it would still need to rise fivefold.
For a scenario targeting 2035, the climb from $1.52 to $500 would require roughly 90% compounded annual growth over nine years.
XRPL’s expanding AI payment activity provides evidence of a developing use case.
However, transaction growth alone cannot establish whether demand for XRP will support a price increase of such magnitude.
The information provided in this article is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be, nor should it be construed as, financial advice. We do not make any warranties regarding the completeness, reliability, or accuracy of this information. All investments involve risk, and past performance does not guarantee future results. We recommend consulting a financial advisor before making any investment decisions.
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.
