Should You Buy XRP When It's Below $2.5? Wall Street Analysts Indicate It Could Rise 150%

XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) has increased by 13% this year. Currently, it is trading at $2.30 and has a market value of $135 billion as of June 10. However, at least one Wall Street analyst believes that this cryptocurrency will be worth much more in three years. Geoff Kendrick at Standard Chartered recently predicted that XRP will surpass Ethereum by 2028. To understand better, Ethereum currently has a market value of $335 billion, so XRP must increase nearly 150% to reach the same level. That would bring its price to $5.70. XRP Ledger is Designed to Enable Faster and Cheaper Cross-Border Payments XRP is the native digital asset on the XRP Ledger, a blockchain developed by the technology company Ripple to simplify cross-border transactions. Traditionally, banks have used the SWIFT (Global Interbank Financial Telecommunications Association) system to transfer money across borders, but transactions can be costly and expensive. XRP Ledger is a faster and cheaper alternative to SWIFT. Ripple Payments allows financial institutions to use blockchain ( with XRP as the intermediary currency ) to send cross-border payments. If banks and payment service providers adopt Ripple's products, the demand for XRP will increase, and this token could become more valuable. However, the specific momentum may be modest at best. In my opinion, the catalyst is more likely to occur than the influx of capital increasing as more retail and institutional investors buy cryptocurrencies for their portfolios. In my opinion, the catalyst is more likely to occur than the influx of capital increasing as more retail and institutional investors buy cryptocurrencies for their portfolios. XRP Will Increase If More Financial Institutions Use It As A Bridge Currency The Guggenheim asset management company has recently leveraged the XRP Ledger to issue digital commercial paper, a fixed-income asset backed by the U.S. Treasury. The XRP Ledger currently accounts for a small percentage of the actual tokenized assets - expected to reach $19 trillion by 2033 - but the addition of tokenized debt to the platform is a positive development that could lead to more transactions on the network. However, not many financial institutions use XRP as a bridge currency and I doubt that will change. Price volatility makes cryptocurrency a risky way to transfer money. Ripple has addressed that issue by creating a stablecoin called Ripple USD. However, while payments made with Ripple USD incur transaction fees calculated in XRP, those fees are very small and the demand for cryptocurrency is negligible. For that reason, financial institutions using Ripple Payments are unlikely to be a significant catalyst for XRP. XRP will increase if many retail and institutional investors buy this token. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the largest futures market in the United States, introduced XRP futures trading in May. Meanwhile, some asset managers have launched XRP futures ETFs. Both are creating new ways for investors to trade XRP, but the most important potential catalyst is the pending approval of several spot XRP ETF applications. Spot XRP ETF will own the cryptocurrency and track its price, rather than trading futures contracts. In other words, the spot XRP ETF will provide investors with direct exposure to the cryptocurrency through traditional brokerage accounts, without incurring the high fees associated with cryptocurrency exchanges. By reducing friction, the spot ETF can unlock demand among retail and institutional investors. Indeed, the price of Bitcoin has skyrocketed by 136% since the spot Bitcoin ETF was approved in January 2024. I believe that the approval of the spot XRP ETF could lead to a similar price increase, whereby XRP has the potential to surpass Ethereum by 2028. This makes XRP an attractive investment option. However, I prefer to own the spot XRP ETF rather than the cryptocurrency itself, so I plan to wait until those investment vehicles gain SEC approval.