The host of the Moon Lambo channel has taken aim at one of XRP’s longest-running memes: the idea that Ripple’s former CTO David Schwartz once implied XRP could or should reach fantastical prices, even “a million dollars” per coin. In a recent video, the host walks through Schwartz’s original 2017 comments, the way they’ve been distorted, and a fresh clarification from Schwartz that undercuts the most extreme XRP price narratives.
What ‘JoelKatz’ Schwartz Actually Said About XRP Pricing
The controversy traces back to a November 20, 2017 X (then Twitter) thread in which Schwartz discussed XRP’s role in payments. A now-deleted post from that thread was recovered via a screenshot originally shared by community member XRP Canada.
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In it, Schwartz wrote that if someone needs “a million dollars worth of XRP to make payments, the market price will be one million dollars,” adding that higher prices make payments cheaper because they move the market less.
He followed with the line that has been quoted ever since: XRP “can’t be dirt cheap, that doesn’t make any sense.”
Schwartz illustrated the point with an extreme comparison: if XRP costs $1, a payment flow might need 1 million XRP; if XRP costs $1 million, it would only need 1 XRP — in both cases, $1 million in value.
The host stresses that Schwartz was clearly using hypothetical extremes to explain liquidity dynamics, not forecasting a million-dollar token, calling claims to the contrary “eye roll inducing.”
In a recent exchange on X, Schwartz has now explicitly clarified the context. Responding to a community member asking why XRP is “still so cheap” given news around Ripple, treasury flows and ETF talk, he said they were “thinking about it from the point of view of an XRP holder,” whereas his 2017 remark was from “the point of view of using it for payments.”
In other words, if the price is too low, XRP becomes less practical for large-value payments because of market impact, not because holders are “owed” higher valuations.
XRP vs. Stablecoins: 3 Advantages, According To JoelKatz
The video also highlights a separate thread in which Schwartz addressed whether XRP is still relevant in an era dominated by stablecoins.
He acknowledged that for some use cases, especially where volatility is intolerable or a regulated counterparty is needed, stablecoins are preferable. But he also outlined three areas where crypto assets like XRP retain an edge.
First, a stablecoin is only stable against one currency; in multi-jurisdictional applications spanning different fiat regimes, that stability weakens. Second, stablecoins can be frozen or clawed back by issuers complying with court orders or government pressure.
A decentralized cryptocurrency with an open market price is harder to censor and may be more suitable for users or AI agents that cannot practically defend themselves in court.
Third, Schwartz argued that for many purposes “the upside is worth more than the downside.” If funds must be locked in escrow for a year, he suggested he might prefer XRP or bitcoin over USD precisely because “USD isn’t going up.”
The host frames this as a practical illustration of why both fiat-linked stablecoins and volatile crypto assets are likely to coexist: each serves distinct risk profiles and applications.
For investors, the key takeaway is less about specific price targets and more about design: XRP’s long-term relevance hinges on real-world utility — payments, liquidity, and censorship resistance — rather than viral interpretations of a seven-year-old quote.
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People Also Ask:
Not exactly – he used $1 and $1 million as extreme examples to illustrate that payment flows care about notional value and liquidity, not a specific target price.
He meant that if XRP is to be widely used for large payments, it needs a sufficiently high price and deep market to avoid large slippage, not that holders are guaranteed high prices.
He sees stablecoins as better for some use cases, but argues that cryptocurrencies like XRP still offer advantages in multi-currency, censorship-resistant, and upside-seeking scenarios.
