Key Points

• XRP trades near $1.40. I think it'll be worth $0.60 in 2030.

• Ripple's cross-border payments product converts dollars into XRP and XRP into the destination currency almost simultaneously and in equal size, so the transactions themselves are demand-neutral.

• RLUSD, Ripple's dollar-backed stablecoin, can act as the bridge asset instead of XRP.

• 10 stocks we like better than XRP ›

My price target for XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) in 2030 is $0.60.

That may sound bearish -- it certainly is -- but I think it's justified. The market is still giving XRP too much credit for Ripple's growing business prospects. The company has made serious strides in the industry. I won't begin to deny that.

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The problem is that investors have spent years treating Ripple's growth and XRP's prospects as essentially the same thing. They are not.

ODL transactions buy and sell XRP in equal amounts, so they create no net demand

The basic XRP bull thesis is that as banks adopt Ripple's technology, especially for cross-border payments, it will create huge demand pressure for the token. It's a simple, clean narrative, but I think the truth is more complicated.

First, most of the major institutional partners you see in the headlines use Ripple's messaging layer and have nothing to do with XRP at all. But many investors already understand this and focus on the company's cross-border payments infrastructure -- what used to be called on-demand liquidity (ODL) -- as the primary demand lever.

Let's say a bank in the U.S. wants to send money to a bank in France. The dollars are converted into XRP on one end of the transaction, while on the other side of the same transaction, XRP is converted into euros and deposited into the French bank's accounts. Here, XRP acts as a "bridge asset" -- an international go-between.

Now, this does create some demand pressure -- there needs to be enough XRP held by market makers to create a liquid market -- but the actual transactions themselves are demand-neutral. XRP is bought and sold nearly instantaneously in equal amounts on either side of the transaction.

Ripple's own stablecoin, RLUSD, can do XRP's job without the volatility

But what demand pressure ODL does create is under threat -- and not from the competition. Ripple's own dollar-backed stablecoin, RLUSD, can also be used in cross-border transactions and could come to be the bridge asset of choice.

RLUSD has a major advantage over XRP financial institutions: stability. Banks aren't generally keen on dealing, even momentarily, with highly volatile assets like XRP. RLUSD offers essentially the same benefits without the risk. And it seems to me that Ripple itself is all too aware of this. The company has made major strategic acquisitions to build out its stablecoin infrastructure, and Ripple now puts RLUSD, not XRP, at the center of the majority of its messaging and branding.

XRP's price runs on speculation, not payment mechanics

In my view, XRP's price is built primarily on speculation and not mechanics, despite the dominant narrative that it's the latter. That can support a price for a long time -- and it has somewhat -- but I don't think it will hold. Ripple will continue to ink partnerships and integrate its technologies into legacy finance, but I think, as people continue to watch XRP's price swing up and down, with little correlation to increased adoption, that narrative will fade, and so will XRP's price.

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Johnny Rice has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.