The primary obstacle for XRP in reaching $5.00 is its circulating supply, which currently stands at approximately 60.7 billion tokens out of a 100 billion maximum supply. At a price of $5.00, XRP would reach an implied market capitalization of $303.5 billion. For context, this would make XRP more valuable than established financial giants like Visa ($630 billion) in terms of relative network utility, given that Visa currently processes hundreds of times the transaction volume of the XRPL.
Despite this, institutional analysts remain bullish. Standard Chartered's target of $8.00 in 2026 implies a belief that XRP will capture a significant percentage of the global cross-border settlement market, which is currently valued in the trillions. The argument for a $5.00+ XRP is built on the "liquidity pool" theory: as institutional demand via ETFs and corporate reserves increases, the available float of XRP on exchanges decreases, leading to asymmetric price upside during periods of high demand.
Epic Cash: Scarcity and the 21 Million Limit
For Epic Cash, the path to $5.00 is mathematically less demanding but constrained by liquidity and market recognition. With a circulating supply of roughly 19 million EPIC, a $5.00 price point would result in a total market capitalization of only $95 million. Given that its historical all-time high was $6.76 in December 2021, the $5.00 level has already been proven as a realistic valuation for the asset.
The current valuation of Epic Cash ($0.30 - $0.56) suggests it is largely ignored by the broader institutional market. However, as the 2026 market shifts toward "Tokenomics 2.0"—where protocols are valued based on their scarcity and revenue-sharing capabilities—Epic’s fixed supply and lack of a premine make it an attractive "digital gold" alternative for privacy-conscious investors. The primary catalyst for a $5.00 EPIC would be a listing on a Tier-1 exchange (such as Binance or Kraken), which would provide the necessary liquidity $XRP
