Ripple's XRP cryptocurrency may rise to $12.5 even before US President Donald Trump leaves office at the end of 2028, according to a report by investment bank Standard Chartered.
The reason for the growth in the analysts' report is that XRP occupies a unique position in the field of international payments, CoinDesk writes. XRP is currently trading at $2.02.
XRP is a cryptocurrency that powers the decentralized public blockchain XRP Ledger (XRPL) from Ripple Labs. This digital payment network is used for settlements, asset exchange and money transfer.
Ripple Labs was founded in 2012 by entrepreneurs Chris Larsen and Jed McCaleb. They are both among the richest representatives of the crypto industry, according to Forbes. The CEO of the company is Brad Garlinghouse.
XRP ranks fourth among the largest cryptocurrencies. Its capitalization currently stands at more than $106 billion.
On April 9th, XRP is trading around $2.02. The asset set a historical maximum at $3.84 in January 2018. 7 years later, in January 2025, XRP was approaching it again, reaching $3.39.
Standard Chartered predicts that the price of the token will reach $5.5 by the end of this year, $8 by the end of 2026, $10.4 by the end of 2027 and $12.5 by the end of 2028. Analysts predict that Ripple's cryptocurrency will rise in price by 85% in 3.5 years.
The bank's analysts noted that XRP has grown sixfold since Trump's election victory in November. In their opinion, this reflected the expectations that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) The United States will abandon the multi-year litigation with Ripple. This growth is also attributed to the potential approval of XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which have been under consideration by the commission since the end of last year.
Indeed, in early March, the SEC ended the litigation with Ripple, in which the parties argued about whether XRP is a security. The end of this case was put by the company itself, agreeing to withdraw the appeal to the regulator.
According to analysts at Standard Chartered, the growth of the Ripple token is also due to the fact that "XRP occupies a unique position at the center of one of the fastest growing use cases for digital assets — simplification of cross-border and multicurrency payments." We are talking about the XRPL blockchain, on the basis of which a number of solutions for international and institutional settlements have been launched.
The investment bank believes that the use of XRPL is similar to the main way of using such stablecoins as Tether (USDT). These are financial transactions via the blockchain, which were previously carried out through traditional financial institutions (TradFi), explained Jeffrey Kendrick, head of digital asset analytics at Standard Chartered. The number of transactions with stablecoins is expected to increase tenfold in the next four years, the report says.
In addition, Apple also plans to introduce ХRPL in the field of tokenization (Real World Assets, RWA), analysts noted. It is a fast-growing sector of digital finance. At the moment, the total capitalization of tokens of RWA projects is estimated at almost $30 billion, whereas a year ago this figure was about $7 billion, according to CoinGecko.
These positive factors mean that the XRP exchange rate should keep pace with its larger counterpart, bitcoin, according to Standard Chartered. Despite the fact that XRPL suffers from two disadvantages: a small number of developers and limited profit generation, these disadvantages are more than offset by positive factors, the bank's report says.
In 2024, Ripple became one of the largest cryptocurrency sponsors of Trump's election campaign and his subsequent inauguration in January of this year.
The growth of XRP in early January was also spurred by a meeting between Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and legal Director Stuart Alderoti with Donald Trump. Market experts noted that this event was "definitely a positive sign" for XRP.
