‘The Higher The Price, The Better’: Ripple’s David Schwartz Answers Angry XRP Holders

David Schwartz has responded to growing anger in the XRP community. As frustrated holders demanded answers from Ripple’s leadership on X, Ripple’s CTO Emeritus said there is no hidden strategy for the token. He also explained why XRP’s price has not kept pace with Ripple’s business wins.

“There’s no secret plan we aren’t telling you about,” Schwartz wrote. “We talk about our plans constantly.”

Holders Demand Answers

The exchange began when one long-time holder called on Schwartz and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse to “address the anger and frustrations” in the community. The holder asked whether loyal investors could ever expect to be rewarded, and complained of “promise after promise and 0 results.”

Another user said many people feel Ripple has not been open about how much XRP is actually used. If Ripple is rolling out the XRP Ledger worldwide, the user asked, why has XRP’s price not moved alongside RLUSD’s growth?

Why XRP Isn’t Moving

Schwartz said XRP’s price is currently “largely dragged around by the market.” Developments specific to XRP and the XRP Ledger only have a secondary effect, in his view. In other words, XRP still moves mostly with the wider crypto market, not with Ripple’s own news.

He pointed holders to a thread from January 2023, where he made the same argument. In that thread, Schwartz said it was his personal sense of the market, which he could not prove but which fit the evidence he had.

“The Higher The Price, The Better”

One user asked whether XRP would need a higher price to handle large volumes of payments across the ledger. Schwartz agreed that a higher price helps.

“The higher the price, the better,” Schwartz said. “A higher price would tend to mean liquidity is more cost-effective and slippage is less.”

For XRP to work as a bridge asset for moving money, each token needs to carry more value. That lets large transfers settle with less price impact.

“Hard To Believe” XRP Would Miss Out

Schwartz also repeated a view he has expressed before: if the XRP Ledger succeeds, XRP should benefit too.

“I really do think it’s hard to believe we will end up in a world where XRPL is successful but XRP fails to capture a good fraction of that value,” Schwartz wrote.

Different Facts, Different Opinions

Asked to address the community’s frustration directly, Schwartz said he was not sure what more he could say. The anger, he said, is an opinion some people have formed from a large set of facts, and others look at the same facts and reach different conclusions.

“I’ve talked about what the facts are, what opinions I form based on them, and why,” Schwartz said.