Despite prolonged bearish pressure across the crypto market, some analysts argue that focusing solely on XRP’s short-term price action misses its true purpose.
Since October, the global cryptocurrency market has shed over $1.3 trillion in value, and XRP has not been spared. The asset has declined roughly 33% over the past three months, reinforcing negative sentiment among retail traders. However, according to Dr. Camila Stevenson—a commentator with expertise in both health systems and finance—price stagnation may actually obscure XRP’s real role in global finance.
Why Watching XRP’s Price Can Be Misleading
In a recent video commentary, Dr. Stevenson suggested that most investors ask the wrong questions about XRP. To illustrate her point, she used an infrastructure analogy.
Engineers, she explained, don’t judge a bridge based on what it costs today. Instead, they evaluate how much weight it can carry, how it performs under stress, and whether it continues to function during extreme conditions. According to Stevenson, XRP and the XRP Ledger (XRPL) were designed using the same logic.
Those who ask why XRP’s price has not moved, she said, are still thinking like short-term traders. The more important question is what the system was architected to handle when financial pressure appears.
Retail Thinking vs. Institutional Thinking
Stevenson highlighted a fundamental divide between how retail investors and institutions evaluate assets.
Retail participants typically analyze markets “from the outside in,” focusing on price charts, candlestick patterns, and near-term momentum. Institutions, by contrast, assess assets “from the inside out,” examining whether they can move value at scale, function under stress, and remain reliable during periods of market instability.
This difference, she argues, explains much of the confusion surrounding XRP. The asset was not designed primarily as a speculative instrument. Instead, it was built as financial infrastructure—what Stevenson described as “plumbing.” And like plumbing, it only draws attention when it fails.
Large financial systems don’t collapse because prices drop, she noted. They fail when settlement slows, liquidity fragments, slippage increases, and counterparty risk escalates. For institutions, such failures can be catastrophic.
While retail investors often ask, “What can I sell this for later?”, institutions ask, “Can this asset move massive flows without breaking the system?” According to Stevenson, XRP is designed to answer the second question—echoing other analysts who urge investors to think in terms of flows, not price.
Why Banks Would Prefer a Higher XRP Price
Stevenson emphasized that XRP is neither a company nor equity, nor does it represent ownership in Ripple. Instead, it functions as a liquidity instrument.
Because XRP has a fixed supply, it cannot scale by creating additional units. As transaction volumes grow, the only way the network can efficiently support larger value transfers is for each unit of XRP to represent more value.
From an institutional perspective, this is critical. Banks moving billions of dollars prefer transferring fewer high-value units rather than millions of low-value ones. A higher XRP price, therefore, improves operational efficiency and reduces friction in settlement.
This view aligns with comments previously made by Ripple CTO David Schwartz, who stated as early as 2017 that “XRP cannot be dirt cheap” if it is to function effectively at scale.
Quiet Positioning, Not Price Spikes
Stevenson also noted that institutional positioning rarely happens on public exchanges. Instead, it occurs through custodians, OTC desks, and private liquidity arrangements—activity that doesn’t produce dramatic price movements on charts.
In fact, sudden spikes during institutional positioning would signal instability rather than success. For large financial players, what matters most is deep liquidity, predictable settlement, stability, and the quiet absorption of supply.
From this perspective, XRP’s value proposition is less about speculation and more about whether it can perform reliably when the global financial system is under pressure.
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