XRP’s long-running market cap debate misses the real question, according to 
Digital Ascension Group CEO Jake Claver: can the network absorb institutional- 
scale payment flows without blowing out execution costs? In a March 26 video, 
Claver argued that market cap is a poor measure of a digital asset’s 
functional strength and said XRP’s price would need to rise materially if it 
is ever to support bank-scale settlement. Claver framed the case around what 
he called a “liquidity index,” a model he says is designed to measure “the 
true utility and stability of a digital asset” rather than just its headline 
valuation. His framework combines six variables: market depth, liquidity 
continuity, slippage, available supply, settlement speed, and access. When 
those factors are assessed together, he said, the key requirement for a 
payments asset is not speculative upside but a high enough price to make large 
transactions workable. Related Reading: Analyst Reveals The Plan For XRP Price 
Using The Bitcoin Chart “The assets that will power the next financial system 
can’t just be volatile speculation,” Claver said. “They actually require a 
high stable price in order to function at a global scale.” Why XRP Could Need 
A Much Higher Price His argument starts with supply. Claver compared XRP to a 
scarce collectible, saying the relevant figure is not just total issuance but 
how many tokens are actually available to trade. If demand rises while more of 
the supply is effectively locked away, the remaining float becomes more 
valuable. He tied that directly to XRP’s payments thesis, describing it as 
“fixed supply, growing demand,” with the reduced amount left on the market 
doing more of the pricing work. From there, Claver turned to market depth, 
which he cast as the central constraint for institutional use. He likened XRP 
liquidity to a pool of water that must be deep enough to absorb a large 
entrant without chaos. If a bank wanted to move $100 million across borders 
using XRP, he said, a shallow market would not absorb the flow cleanly and 
price dislocation would follow. “The lever for that has got to be price,” he 
said. “If XRP is worth $1 each and you need to move $100 million to the 
network, you need a hundred million tokens sitting in the pool ready to be 
able to absorb that trade. But as the pool gets larger and let’s say XRP is 
worth $100 each, you only need a million tokens to absorb the same $100 
million trade.” Related Reading: XRP Could Be Building A Major Short Squeeze, 
Analyst Says That logic extended to slippage, which Claver described as one of 
the clearest reasons banks are not yet using crypto rails for large-value 
transfers. He said a $100 million XRP transaction today could lose “somewhere 
around 10% just because of slippage,” or roughly $10 million, while 
traditional equity markets can process similar size for less than half a 
percent. To narrow that gap, he argued, the value sitting on order books would 
need to grow by roughly 20 to 100 times. With token supply fixed, he said, 
price would have to do “all of that work.” Claver also argued that available 
XRP supply could tighten further over time. He pointed to ETF products, 
corporate and bank treasury inventory, and DeFi pools as sources of locked-up 
tokens that would be unavailable for exchange liquidity. In that setup, he 
said, rising demand would collide with shrinking float and price would not 
“slide up gradually” but gap higher once sellers became scarce. Speed is the 
other pillar of the thesis. Claver said XRP’s 3-to-5-second settlement time 
gives the same pool of capital far more turnover than slower networks, 
allowing market makers to recycle liquidity more efficiently. But he stressed 
that speed alone is not enough. “If every single trade cost you 1 to 2% in 
slippage,” he said, “the speed advantage turns into a faster way to lose 
money.” He closed by arguing that market cap offers only a superficial 
snapshot because it assumes every token could be valued at the last traded 
price. For a network meant to process cross-border value at scale, he said, 
the real test is whether its order books can absorb institutional volume 
without destroying capital. On Claver’s telling, that makes higher XRP prices 
less a matter of hype than a structural condition for the network to do the 
job its advocates envision. At press time, XRP traded at $1.3337. Featured 
image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

XRP Needs Higher Prices To Handle Bank-Scale Flows, Jake Claver Argues

Investor sentiment in the crypto market sits at its lowest point in months — 
and the biggest Bitcoin holders are treating it like a buying window. Retail 
Sellers, Whale Buyers While everyday investors have been stepping back, 
wallets holding between 10 and 10,000 Bitcoin added roughly 61,568 coins over 
the past 30 days, according to data from market analytics firm Santiment. 
Related Reading: Over $6B: XAUT Futures Volume Rewrites Records On Binance 
That 0.45% increase in holdings came even as geopolitical tensions flared and 
broader financial markets turned choppy. At the same time, the smallest 
wallets — those holding under 0.01 BTC — also added coins, picking up around 
213 Bitcoin, a 0.42% rise. The two groups moved in the same direction, but for 
different reasons, analysts say. 🐳📈 Despite dipping to $68.1K today, Bitcoin&#8217;s 
key stakeholders are accumulating. Whales and sharks with 10-10K $BTC have 
accumulated 61,568 BTC (+0.45%) in the past month, which is a promising sign 
of an eventual breakout from this range. 🤑 Besides the current macroeconomic… 
pic.twitter.com/YDbRYNYH85 — Santiment (@santimentfeed) March 26, 2026 
Dominick John, an analyst at Zeus Research, said that large holders are 
quietly stacking during flat-price periods, not reacting to daily headlines. 
Small wallet holders, he said, are driven by something else entirely — fear of 
missing out when prices tick upward. &#8220;Small wallets are chasing the momentum,&#8221; 
John said, adding that if retail buying overheats, a brief sell-off before the 
next accumulation wave is possible. A Pattern Analysts Have Seen Before 
Santiment analysts pointed to a longer historical pattern: when large wallets 
accumulate while smaller holders are selling, it has often preceded the start 
of a sustained price rise. The firm called the current behavior a &#8220;promising 
sign&#8221; that a breakout from the months-long trading range could be ahead — and 
that the direction of that breakout is more likely to be up than down. Bitcoin 
exchange outflows have also been steady throughout March, data shows. Coins 
leaving exchanges typically signal holders are moving assets into cold 
storage, a sign they plan to hold rather than sell in the short term. Not 
every major holder has been buying, though. On March 19, two Bitcoin whales 
moved tens of millions of dollars worth of coins onto exchanges — a move that 
often precedes a sale. That day, Bitcoin prices dropped as attacks on Gulf oil 
and gas infrastructure pushed energy prices higher and rattled markets tied to 
the Iran conflict. Related Reading: Iran Rejects Peace Talk Claims, Leaving 
Bitcoin Stuck At $70K Extreme Fear Grips The Market The Crypto Fear &amp; Greed 
Index recorded a score of 10 on Thursday and 13 on Friday. Both readings fall 
firmly in &#8220;extreme fear&#8221; territory. The entire month of February and the week 
prior both averaged the same. A score of zero represents maximum fear; 100 
represents peak greed. That kind of prolonged fear reading is unusual. It 
reflects a market where uncertainty has settled in — not as a spike, but as a 
sustained mood. Middle East tensions have been a key driver. US and Israeli 
strikes against Iran in February triggered a wave of retaliations across the 
region, and the conflict has continued to weigh on global markets since. 
Featured image from EG Healthcare, chart from TradingView

Bitcoin Fear Hits The Floor As Big Holders Stack 62,000 Coins

Institutional capital is rapidly embedding crypto into mainstream finance, 
with adoption accelerating and allocation strategies expanding as market 
integration approaches a critical tipping point driven by large-scale investor 
participation. Institutional Capital Accelerates Crypto Integration as 
Allocations and Product Access Rapidly Expand Institutional capital rotation 
into crypto markets is accelerating, with Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley signaling 
[…]

‘They’re Here’: Bitwise Signals End of Anticipation Phase as Institutions Embed Into Crypto

XRP is currently sitting at a key transition zone where market structure is 
being tested, and direction is about to be decided. Historical patterns 
suggest that periods like this don’t last long, often leading to significant 
moves once the price breaks out of consolidation. With both bullish and 
bearish scenarios still in play, the next move could set the tone for what 
comes next. XRP Enters Critical Decision Zone In a recent XRP analysis, EGRAG 
CRYPTO highlighted that price is currently sitting at a highly sensitive 
level, one that could determine the market’s next major direction. This zone 
represents a key inflection point, where market structure is being tested, and 
a decisive move is likely to follow. Related Reading: XRP Price Turns Soft, 
Red Signals Renewed Bearish Pressure If this level holds, XRP could begin to 
grind higher as buyers step in to defend the support. On the other hand, a 
failure to hold this zone would likely trigger a deeper correction, with price 
potentially revisiting lower support levels around $1.15. That makes the 
current range a critical battleground, where the next move could set the tone 
for the coming weeks. Historical behavior adds more weight to this setup. In 
previous cycles, a similar signal appeared when the yellow line crossed above 
the red line, a shift that often aligned with the market approaching a bottom. 
While not an exact timing tool, the crossover has consistently marked an 
important transition phase in XRP’s price action. The timing around this 
signal has varied across cycles, with the 2018 bottom forming roughly 126 days 
after the cross, while in 2022, the bottom occurred about 42 days before it. 
In both cases, the crossover identified a zone rather than a precise bottom, 
suggesting that XRP was either at or very close to its lowest point. With the 
same signal now appearing again, it points to the possibility that the market 
is once more entering a key transition zone where a major move could soon 
unfold. Watching The Levels That Matter Most The analyst went on to outline 
the key levels being closely monitored, emphasizing that a weekly close above 
$1.80, aligned with the yellow line, would signal that XRP is reclaiming its 
market structure and could begin shifting momentum back in favor of the bulls. 
Related Reading: XRP Eyes Massive Breakout, But Not Before A Potential 
Shakeout A stronger confirmation would come from a decisive break and 
sustained hold above the $2.20 level. Achieving that would signal a transition 
into a more aggressive expansion phase, often referred to as full thrust mode, 
where bullish momentum accelerates, and price action becomes more directional. 
On the other hand, failure to reclaim the $1.80 level would suggest that the 
market is not yet ready for a sustained upside move. In that case, downside 
pressure would remain active. The strategy remains centered on confirmation 
rather than prediction, allowing price action to validate the next move. 
Featured image from Adobe Stock, chart from Tradingview.com

XRP At Key Transition Zone, And History Says Move Is Near

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said Morgan Stanley’s 16,000 financial 
advisors, who manage $6.2 trillion in client assets, would have no problem 
recommending the product at such low fees.

Cryptocurrency price in INR