Why Owning 100 XRP Could Become Increasingly Difficult in a Shrinking Supply Market

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The claim sounds dramatic at first: one day, owning just 100 XRP might feel like holding something scarce. But that’s the argument gaining attention after a recent breakdown by Edo Farina, and he insists it’s less about moon-talk and more about simple math.

XRP is trading around $1.37 during a broader market cooldown. Nothing explosive on the surface. But Farina says the price today is a distraction. What matters, in his view, is who could end up holding the supply tomorrow.

The Bank Liquidity Theory

Farina’s core argument starts with global banking plumbing.

Banks currently park massive sums of money in what are known as nostro accounts — prefunded pools used to settle cross-border payments. Trillions of dollars sit idle in that system worldwide. If XRP were used as a bridge asset to replace that structure, he argues, financial institutions would need to hold significant reserves.

His rough model goes like this:

If around 150 central banks held 100 million XRP each, that alone would absorb 15 billion tokens. Add roughly 25,000 private banks holding 1 million XRP each, and another 25 billion tokens would be tied up. Combined, that’s about 40 billion XRP — nearly half of the total 100 billion supply.

Whether those numbers are realistic is up for debate. But the point he’s making is simple: institutional reserves could dramatically thin out the liquid supply.

CBDCs, Wallet Reserves, and Retail Demand

Farina doesn’t stop at banks. He layers in consumer adoption through central bank digital currencies and stablecoins potentially operating on the XRP Ledger. If even a fraction of the global population needed XRP to activate wallets or maintain reserve balances, that demand would add up quickly.

For example, if 800 million users held just five XRP each to operate wallets, that would remove 4 billion tokens from active circulation.

It’s not just accumulation, either. Every transaction on the XRP Ledger burns a tiny amount of XRP. Over time, that mechanism slowly reduces total supply. The burn rate is small, but across large-scale usage, it compounds.

Supply Shock or Stretch Scenario?

The bullish case is clear. If institutions lock reserves, retail users hold base balances, and transaction activity continues to chip away at supply, fewer tokens would remain freely tradable. In theory, prices would need to rise to balance shrinking availability with steady or growing demand.

The counterargument is just as straightforward. These projections assume widespread institutional adoption, coordinated accumulation, and heavy retail usage. That’s a tall order. Global banks move cautiously. Governments move slower. And crypto adoption rarely follows a clean, linear path.

Still, the idea sticks because it reframes the conversation. Instead of asking whether XRP can reach a certain price, it asks how much of the supply could realistically stay liquid if large players begin holding it long term.

If that shift ever materializes, 100 XRP might not sound like pocket change.

For now, it remains a theory built on potential structural demand.