Here’s What $1,000 Invested in XRP at Launch is Worth Today

If an investor had committed $1,000 in XRP when it first appeared on exchanges and held onto the tokens, how much would the investment be worth now?

XRP has come a long way from its humble beginnings, being one of the earliest crypto assets to hit the market. For context, the XRP Ledger (XRPL), which hosts the XRP token, debuted in June 2012. However, market data from CoinMarketCap and other analytics platforms does not provide information on XRP pricing before August 2013.

XRP Journey Since August 2013

According to CoinMarketCap, XRP’s earliest trading price as of Aug. 5, 2013, stood at $0.00587, worth nearly nothing to the average investor. With the total supply of 100 billion tokens, the entire XRP market had a valuation of $587 million at the time, a testament to its humble beginnings.

Another drop occurred in 2015, and XRP consistently traded between $0.005 and $0.008 from 2015 to early 2017, with no clear direction during this period. Nonetheless, a decisive breakout occurred in March 2017, with XRP eventually crossing the $1 valuation for the first time in December 2017 and hitting $3.31 in January 2018.

How Much Would the $1,000 in XRP be Worth Today?

After years of sustained downtrend and underperformance, which some attribute to suppression mechanisms and the SEC lawsuit, XRP has again recovered above the $1 mark and now sits around $3

Today, XRP changes hands at $3.3. At this price, the 170,357 tokens, procured with $1,000 in August 2013, would be worth $562,000. While XRP has not seen the same explosive growth as Bitcoin or Ethereum since their respective debuts, its overall trajectory has been upward since launch.

Comparison with Bitcoin

Notably, if the same investor had chosen to invest in Bitcoin at the time of XRP launch, they would have actually doubled their returns. Specifically, on Aug. 5, 2013, BTC traded for $100, and $1,000 would have amassed 10 BTC. Today, with Bitcoin changing hands at $116,684, the investment would be worth $1.16 million. This is $604,000 more than XRP returned.

XRP’s lower gains are largely due to its underperformance from 2018 to 2024, which most analysts have ascribed to the SEC lawsuit. Notably, it only started to recover from this predicament in November 2024 and has since outperformed the market

Interestingly, for XRP to catch up to Bitcoin’s growth from August 2013, it would need to reach a price of $6.85 while BTC remains around the $116,000 mark. This would require a 107% increase from XRP’s current price and would make the 170,357 tokens worth about $1.16 million.