Can XRP Overtake Ethereum? Ripple CEO Garlinghouse Thinks So

Brad Garlinghouse has never been shy about talking his own book. This week the Ripple chief executive went on record saying XRP can flip Ether and claim the number-two slot by market cap. Pump the brakes before you load up, but also hear him out, because the case for an XRP overtake Ethereum scenario is not pure hopium.

The gap Ripple has to close

The numbers are brutal on their face. XRP currently sits fourth on the leaderboard with a market cap around $88 billion. Ethereum is parked at roughly $282 billion. For XRP to pull level, the token would need to trade above $4.58, and that assumes Ether stands perfectly still while XRP runs. It never does. Ether is almost certainly moving too, which means the real target is a moving one and likely higher.

Bitcoin still sits on top of the stack, followed by Ether, which introduced smart contracts as the layer on top of what Bitcoin started. XRP Ledger took a different path. It was built for fast, cheap financial settlement, and Ripple has spent years pitching it to banks and payment firms. Every transaction burns a tiny slice of native XRP, and the token doubles as a bridge currency between fiat pairs.

Ripple is buying its way into the plumbing

The corporate side of the story is moving faster than the token price. Ripple spent $1.25 billion on the prime broker Ripple Hidden Road acquisition, the largest deal of its kind in digital assets. Another $1 billion went to cash-management platform GTreasury. Stablecoin infrastructure firm Rail was folded in to beef up Ripple's RLUSD ambitions.

Add it up and Ripple is building a one-stop shop for institutional finance. Clearing, treasury, stablecoins, custody-adjacent services. The thesis is straightforward. If you hand banks every tool they could want wrapped around the XRP Ledger, they start routing flow through it. More flow, more transactions, more XRP demand.

What tailwinds actually move the needle?

Four forces sit behind the bull case. Tokenization of real-world assets is finally showing up as actual issuance, not just pitch decks. Stablecoin adoption keeps compounding, with RLUSD carving out its own lane. Regulatory fog is lifting, helped along by the SEC dropping its posture against Ripple after years of litigation. And institutional rails have finally opened up for XRP exposure.

The ETF wildcard

Spot XRP ETFs launched in November 2025 and have pulled in over $1 billion since. That is a healthy start, but it looks small next to Ethereum's roughly $12 billion in ETF inflows over a similar window, according to XRP spot ETF inflows tracked by CoinShares. The optimistic read: institutional money is still early on XRP and has room to run. Every share bought locks up tokens off the open market, which tightens supply.

What could kill the trade

Three things. Execution risk, because the acquisition spree means nothing if the blockchain activity does not follow. RLUSD itself, because a Ripple-issued stablecoin used as a bridge currency directly eats into the reason XRP exists as a liquidity layer. And the overhang from long-suffering XRP holders who bought at higher prices and want out. Buyers have to absorb that supply before price can run.

Garlinghouse is paid to be bullish. The flip-Ethereum call is marketing as much as forecast. But between the acquisitions, the ETF flows, and a friendlier SEC, XRP has more going for it than at any point in the last five years. Whether that gets you to $4.58 is a different question.