At the APEX 2025 conference, Ripple co-founder Brad Garlinghouse stated that XRP could capture up to 14% of SWIFT's total volume within five years. This sparks discussions about XRP's potential expansion in international settlements.
Conservative Liquidity Calculations
Crypto expert Crypto Eri offered a grounded view of how much XRP would be needed to handle a $4.2 trillion annual volume, representing just a fraction of SWIFT's total, under conservative assumptions.
Based on a token price of $2.15 and an average transaction cycle of three minutes for liquidity management, it is estimated that 11.15 million XRP could facilitate that volume, amounting to only 0.0190% of the 58.82 billion circulating supply.
The key factor underpinning this conclusion is high token velocity. If each XRP is reused every three minutes, that enables up to 480 transactions per day per token.
The Critical Role of Velocity in XRP Valuation
However, this high-frequency assumption is theoretical and rarely reflected in actual market conditions. Another contributor, responding to Eri's model, elaborated on the practical realities of using XRP as a bridge asset.
If liquidity recycles more slowly, for instance, at 100 or even 50 transactions per day, the asset's price must increase significantly to maintain the same transaction capacity.
The example given shows that at only 50 transactions per day, XRP would need to be priced at approximately $20.64 to handle the same $4.2 trillion throughput. At 10 daily transactions, the price would have to hit $103.20.
Can XRP Handle This Volume?
XRP settles in 3 to 5 seconds, but real-world frictions, such as uneven transaction flow, regulatory delays, and fiat off-ramps, limit effective reuse, forcing liquidity providers to hold extra XRP and reducing practical turnover despite automation.
However, XRP is still significantly faster than SWIFT and similar legacy systems, leading to louder calls for the adoption of the digital asset as a SWIFT replacement.
XRP's potential for handling significant volumes of international transactions is a topic of debate among experts. Evaluating its future use as a bridge asset depends on various factors, including token velocities and market conditions.
