🤔 Ripple Vet Doubts $10K XRP Price Target In a recent social media post, Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz threw cold water on the uber-bullish $10,000 XRP price target that is being hyped up by influencers. According to Schwarz, if influencers truly believed that XRP could one day end up in five-digit territory, they would have already pushed the token to at least $20. However, there is no such strong bid, which suggests that no one truly believes in such insane price targets, and they are mostly being used to increase engagement. As Schwartz explained earlier, even if there is a 10% chance of XRP hitting $100 in the near future, they absolutely would not be selling it for under $10 today. XRP is currently trading at $1.38, down 63% from the all-time high that was achieved 10 months ago. 🔸 Can Ripple shoot up the XRP price? Schwartz has also explained that Ripple no longer has the ability to single-handedly shoot up the price of XRP. “Maybe there was one time when you could semi-plausibly argue that Ripple had some easy way to shoot up the price of XRP massively for good but was just waiting for the right time to maximize something or other. But boy, it's hard to argue that today,” he said. Schwartz has made it clear that Ripple is not trying to hide some “grand conspiracy,” and it’s not holding onto a magic switch that could instantly push the XRP price higher on a whim. “We've explained what we're doing, why we're doing it, and what we hope to achieve. While we aren't transparent about everything, we're not hiding some grand conspiracy. At least not as far as I know,” Schwartz has stated. 🔸 Selling at $0.10 Schwartz has openly admitted that he de-risked his personal finances by selling a significant portion of his XRP portfolio at just $0.10 per token. He noted that predicting massive price surges at the time seemed as impossible as Bitcoin hitting $100. "I started selling XRP at $0.10 because it seemed insane," Schwartz explained.

In recent years, the international financial messaging standard ISO 20022 announced by SWIFT has been drawing attention. Cryptocurrencies that comply with this standard are actually limited, and even in the current market cycle they’re showing interesting performance. Bitcoin and Ethereum aren’t compatible with ISO 20022. The reason is simple: these two were created in 2009 and 2015, respectively—before the standard was announced. No one can retroactively change that. Meanwhile, XRP from Ripple, although a project created in 2012, was deliberately moved toward ISO 20022 compliance under corporate leadership. That’s a key difference. There are currently 8 major cryptocurrencies that comply with ISO 20022: XRP, ADA, XLM, HBAR, ALGO, IOTA, QNT, and XDC. In particular, there’s also the view that aligning with this standard may have influenced recent market performance. Let’s start with XRP. Last October, it was below $0.6, and then it surged sharply in the subsequent market. Right now, it has settled at $1.38. Even so, it hasn’t reached the bubble peak of $3.8 in January 2018—back then, it was a frenzy with +1400% in just one month. As for ADA, by market capitalization it’s the second-largest among ISO 20022-compliant cryptocurrencies. It was below $0.4 last October, then rose to above $1.2, but it has since pulled back to $0.25. It’s still far from the peak of $3.1 in 2021. It hasn’t seen a surge as explosive as XRP. XLM is a cryptocurrency that was created as a Ripple spin-off, and after posting a high above $0.9 in 2021, it was in a lot of trouble afterward. It’s now at $0.16. HBAR is also in a correction phase, currently at $0.09. What’s particularly interesting are ALGO and IOTA. These two have been struggling considerably. ALGO has fallen 85% from its all-time high, and IOTA has dropped by more than 90%. Currently, ALGO is down to $0.11 and IOTA is down to $0.05. They’re still far from their peaks in 2021, and there is theoretically room for a recovery—but in the long run, it looks like the downtrend is continuing. QNT and XDC have a slightly different pattern. QNT is currently $68.59, down 72% from its all-time high. XDC is down about 30%, staying around $0.03. These two strongly tend to track the overall market cycle. It’s still unknown whether adapting to ISO 20022 truly affects the cryptocurrency market. However, it’s certain that cryptocurrencies compliant with this standard have a theoretical advantage in terms of connecting with the existing financial system. It may be worth keeping an eye on how this develops going forward.

Recently, I’ve seen people discussing the concept of Hodler again, and I truly think it’s the key to understanding the mindset of the crypto market. In the Bitcoin community, the word “Hodler” has become a kind of faith—it refers to those who hold on to their coins tightly no matter how much the market fluctuates. Bitcoin’s price volatility is indeed extremely intense, which is why so many people rush to sell when the price surges. I’ve seen too many people clear out their holdings when Bitcoin is near its all-time highs. They make a decent profit, but they also miss out on the subsequent upside. Real Hodlers are different: they aren’t frightened by short-term price changes, and they aren’t tempted by the lure of explosive rallies. Because Bitcoin is decentralized, its value is determined entirely by market supply and demand. This means the price will go through all kinds of extreme swings—there are bubbles, there are crash drops, and there are all sorts of acquisition-related offers and takeover quotes. But the Hodler’s logic is simple: they believe in long-term value. They choose to ignore short-term price noise and wait patiently. This mindset also extends to the entire crypto market. Right now, BTC is around 77.31K, ETH is at 2.28K, and XRP is at 1.38—these prices change every day. But true Hodlers aren’t thrown off or irritated by these everyday fluctuations. What they care about is what happens five or ten years from now. To be honest, being a true Hodler isn’t easy. It requires confidence in your investment logic, as well as strong mental resilience. But judging from history, those who stick to the Hodler mentality often end up with decent returns. That’s also why this concept is so widely admired in the crypto community.