A tweet from Ripple’s official account from Could 6, 2013, is making the rounds once more — and it reveals simply how a lot the story round XRP has modified. Again then, Ripple overtly referred to XRP as its token and celebrated overtaking Bitcoin in market cap. Today, that type of language is off-limits in company filings and courtroom testimony.
The context was easy: Bitcoin’s market cap was nonetheless beneath $2 billion, and due to the pre-mined 100 billion XRP cash, the latter briefly claimed the highest spot based mostly on the logic of absolutely diluted provide.
It was not the final time. Again in early 2018, XRP was buying and selling at $2.38 and had a market cap of $238 billion, which was greater than Bitcoin’s $214 billion. It was a uncommon event when BTC didn’t paved the way within the crypto world.
That rating didn’t maintain up. Skip forward to 2026, and the hole continues to be large. Bitcoin is buying and selling at round $92,800, with a valuation of $1.85 trillion. XRP is at $2.28, which places it at $138 billion in market cap. It’s at present ranked fourth, behind Ethereum and Tether, with a 13x hole separating it from Bitcoin.
XRP just isn’t Ripple
The tweet shouldn’t be judged by the previous numbers, however by the way in which they’re introduced. Again in 2013, Ripple promoted XRP’s rise as its personal success. There was no line between the corporate and the asset. However then the SEC lawsuit got here alongside, and Ripple began saying that XRP is its personal factor and isn’t a safety tied to the corporate.
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It is a little bit of a contradiction, for the reason that token was known as “Ripple” and is now being rebranded as separate, decentralized and hands-off. However the historic document reveals one thing totally different, and the tweet nonetheless says what it says.