The idea of XRP trading at $589 may sound unrealistic at first, but the rationale behind it is not based on a normal crypto rally. Instead, it is based on a scenario where the XRP Ledger becomes part of high-value delivery-versus-payment settlement at the DTCC/CLS layer, with the altcoin acting as the liquidity asset behind large institutional transactions.
Meanwhile, under that model, $589 is the level XRP would need to reach to support about $73 trillion in annual settlement flow with limited slippage.
The Transactions That Cannot Be Made Smaller
To understand the $589 figure, one must first understand the category of transaction it is designed to accommodate. Also, the $589 XRP calculation starts with the assumption that the XRP Ledger achieves delivery-versus-payment adoption at a layer comparable to the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and Continuous Linked Settlement (CLS).
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Under this scenario, the token would be used for large obligations that cannot be easily netted, broken into smaller parts, or settled through multiple layers. These transactions can range from about $500 million to $10 billion per ticket.
There are many corridors that fall under these transactions, and this model breaks it into six corridors. DTCC net settlement is assigned about $15 trillion at 20% capture; SWIFT cross-border settlement is assigned about $21 trillion at 14% capture and FX derivatives net settlement is assigned about $12 trillion at 12% capture.
Furthermore, repo and FICC atomic settlement is assigned about $5 trillion at 10% capture, nostro displacement is assigned about $9 trillion at 33% capture, and stablecoin settlement is assigned about $11 trillion at 33% capture. This comes to a total of $73 trillion in annual volume passing through the XRP Ledger.
The Square Root Market Impact Model Produces $589 XRP
In order for XRP to serve as the bridge asset absorbing these flows, it must be deep enough that something like a $2 billion ticket can settle without moving its price beyond the 5 basis points of slippage that institutional FX desks treat as standard.
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The $589 figure comes from an inverted version of the square root market impact law. The model uses a $2 billion ticket size, $73 trillion in annual volume, 0.5% volatility, 5 basis points of slippage tolerance, 1.36% turnover, and a 25 billion XRP liquid float.
Furthermore, the liquid float assumption excludes escrowed XRP, ETF-held XRP, treasury-held XRP, and inactive wallets. Under that setup, the required market cap comes out near $14.7 trillion. Dividing that required market cap by 25 billion liquid XRP gives a required price of about $589.
Hence, the calculation is very different from a simple market cap comparison using the full circulating supply. The current circulating supply of XRP is about 61.82 billion XRP, which is much larger than the assumed 25 billion liquid float in the model. This means the $589 outcome depends on only a smaller portion of XRP being truly available for active settlement liquidity. At the time of writing, XRP is trading at $1.37.
Featured image from Getty Images, chart from Tradingview.com