XRP Price May Benefit From XRPL Success, Ripple CTO Says

Ripple’s XRP sits in a long-running debate about whether the token’s value depends on the ledger’s adoption or on a separate role in payments and settlement. David Schwartz, identified here as Ripple CTO emeritus, is addressing that question directly in the context of the XRP Ledger’s use in financial applications. That matters because readers trying to understand XRP need to separate the ledger’s utility from the token’s own function.

For people building or using crypto payment rails, Schwartz’s position points to a model where a ledger can gain adoption without making the token irrelevant. If that view holds, then XRP would still be part of the system even if another asset handles broader settlement. The practical takeaway is that the architecture of a network can leave room for more than one asset or role.

The larger issue is the tension between settlement centralization and token utility. A world where Bitcoin dominates global settlement would narrow the number of assets carrying that top-layer role, while XRP’s case rests on finding value inside a different layer of the stack. That puts the spotlight on whether crypto networks are being used as unified monetary systems or as specialized infrastructure with distinct functions.