December 30, 2025 ChainGPT

Stageyo CEO Stern Drew: Don't Dismiss $10,000 XRP — Institutional Settlement Changes the Math

Stageyo CEO Stern Drew: Don't Dismiss $10,000 XRP — Institutional Settlement Changes the Math
Could XRP ever hit $10,000? A crypto industry voice says don’t dismiss it outright. Stern Drew, founder and CEO of Stageyo, has pushed back against models that flatly rule out a $10,000 XRP, arguing on X that those projections use the wrong framework. According to Drew, treating XRP like a retail-driven crypto—valued primarily by speculative demand and historical cycle math—misses its core design and use case. Drew highlights a critical difference: XRP was built for large-scale, institutional settlement. He points out that individual Ripple partners can move more value in a single day using XRP than Bitcoin processes in a year. That disparity in settlement volume, he says, changes the valuation calculus. When an asset is used to settle massive cross-border flows, the relevant metrics shift from retail market cap and price cycles toward liquidity, throughput, and settlement efficiency. From this perspective, a higher per-token price can be an efficiency feature, not a drawback: fewer tokens are needed to move a given value, reducing friction and speeding transactions. Drew calls this “a different kind of math” for a “different league” of financial activity—one where institutional flows, not retail speculation, drive long-term utility and value. For that reason, he argues, $10,000 per XRP can’t be dismissed as impossible over the long run. Drew also pointed to a recent Bank of Japan announcement noting cooperation between Japan and South Korea on blockchain infrastructure. While official talks are reported to be private, Drew interprets the announcement as a potential nod to initiatives that could favor Ripple’s technology and XRP. Ripple already has established ties with major Japanese players such as SBI Holdings, and South Korea has long been a significant investor in XRP—factors Drew says could amplify institutional adoption down the road. Bottom line: Drew is urging analysts to reframe how they value XRP—focusing on settlement capacity and institutional use cases rather than retail-driven models. He stops short of forecasting timing, but maintains that, given XRP’s intended role in global payments, a $10,000 price tag remains within the realm of possibility in a future defined by large-scale institutional flows. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news