- Utility thesis vs. monetary thesis
- Has XRP ever flipped Bitcoin?
Pierre Rochard, a prominent Bitcoin advocate, has predicted that popular alternative cryptocurrencies of the likes of Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL) are not going to surpass the crypto king.
Rochard’s prediction is based on the clash of the utility thesis that underpins various altcoins with the monetary thesis behind Bitcoin.
Utility thesis vs. monetary thesis
Various alternative cryptocurrencies, including ETH and XRP, are believed to derive their value specifically from utility, which encompasses the specific use cases that the networks behind these cryptocurrencies provide. For instance, the value of XRP is believed to increase if the token gains more traction as a means of cross-border payments.
However, the price of Bitcoin, as Rochard argues, does not actually depend on the number of people who use it for transactions. Instead, its value comes from decentralization, censorship resistance, fixed supply, as well as various network effects.
Rochard argues that any prominent company will actually be perfectly capable of launching its own blockchain and capturing the use cases offered by altcoins.
As reported by U.Today, Swift executive Tom Zschach recently questioned whether banks would be willing to deal with the additional costs that are associated with using XRP as a bridge currency.
Has XRP ever flipped Bitcoin?
A fake CoinMarketCap screenshot from 2018 frequently gets circulated on social media to show that XRP did dethrone Bitcoin back in the day. However, it is worth noting that the $238 million figure referred to the token’s fully diluted market cap (meaning that all of the 100 billion tokens were counted). Of course, it is extremely misleading given that the aforementioned figure also took into account tens of billions of tokens that were not in circulation.
