Expert Says XRP Will Jump Bitcoin. Here’s why

Sandy Kaul, a senior figure at Franklin Templeton, has publicly signaled a shift in how institutional investors are thinking about the crypto asset space.

In a video shared by popular crypto commentator Digital Asset Investor on X, Kaul identified three areas she sees as major growth opportunities: decentralized digital identity, agentic AI and micropayments, and post-quantum computing security infrastructure.

Notably, none of those categories describe Bitcoin.

Kaul stated plainly: “We are moving past the Bitcoin leads and Bitcoin is the predominant asset.” She acknowledged Bitcoin’s continued relevance stating “Bitcoin is going to be an important asset always.” She made it clear that the investment case for other parts of the ecosystem has grown significantly stronger. “The fundamental investment case for other parts of the ecosystem has strengthened to such an extent that these are becoming really important growth opportunities,” she said.

What XRP Brings to the Table

Digital Asset Investor took Kaul’s remarks as validation of a position he says he has held for years. “There’s no way XRP doesn’t pass Bitcoin in market cap, it’s just a matter of time,” he said.

His reasoning centers on utility. Bitcoin functions primarily as a decentralized store of value with a fixed supply of 21 million BTC. XRP operates differently. It is designed to move value efficiently across the XRP Ledger, settling transactions in around 3 to 5 seconds at very low cost. It can act as a bridge asset between currencies, removing the need for providers to hold separate liquidity pools for every currency pair. The ledger also supports tokenized assets and stablecoins through its native decentralized exchange.

Bitcoin’s network relies on energy-intensive proof-of-work mining. The XRP Ledger uses a consensus mechanism that requires no mining at all, making it considerably less energy-intensive per transaction.

These are the categories Kaul named as high-opportunity: infrastructure for payments, AI-driven micropayments, and security. XRP has active development across all three.

Two Assets, Two Roles

Bitcoin and XRP are not built to do the same thing. Bitcoin’s proposition is monetary scarcity and decentralized ownership. XRP’s proposition is payment efficiency and financial infrastructure utility. Both can succeed independently.

What remains an open question is whether growing adoption of XRP for real-world payment use cases will generate sustained demand for the token itself. Utility and price appreciation are not automatically linked. Demand for XRP as a bridge asset, a fee token, and a liquidity instrument will determine how that plays out.