People sometimes ask if my conviction on XRP ever wavered. It hasn’t, not on the underlying thesis, even though the last several years running a business in this space have had plenty of frustrating stretches.
Separating the business from the asset
Building anything in crypto has been slow going more often than not. Timelines slip, partnerships take longer than expected, and regulatory clarity arrives on its own schedule, not yours. That part has been genuinely hard.
But the question of whether XRP and digital assets broadly have real utility is a different question, and it’s one I stopped debating with myself a long time ago. The uncertainty for me has never been “if.” It’s been “when.”
Why the “when, not if” framing matters
That distinction matters because it changes what you’re watching for. If you’re waiting to see whether the underlying technology works, you can spend years second-guessing every headline. If you’ve already concluded the utility case is sound, what you’re actually tracking is adoption speed: how fast institutions integrate it, how fast regulatory frameworks settle, how fast the infrastructure gets built out.
None of that is a guarantee of any particular price outcome, and I’d be doing you a disservice if I framed it that way. Markets are unpredictable in the short term no matter how solid the fundamentals look. What I can say is that the pieces that needed to fall into place, regulatory engagement, institutional interest, real settlement use cases, have been falling into place steadily rather than all at once.
What to actually watch
If you’re evaluating any digital asset, don’t anchor to price momentum alone. Look at whether real institutions are building on it, whether regulatory questions are getting resolved rather than deferred, and whether the use case solves an actual problem instead of just describing one. That’s a more useful filter than trying to time a feeling of “everything clicking.”
Frustration is part of the process, not a signal to bail
I’d also caution against reading every rough patch as evidence the thesis is wrong. Businesses in this space deal with slow partners, shifting regulatory timelines, and technical setbacks constantly, and none of that necessarily says anything about whether the underlying asset has real utility. The mistake is conflating “this is taking longer than I hoped” with “this isn’t going to happen.” Those are two very different conclusions, and only one of them is usually justified by the evidence in front of you.
If you’re holding a position based on a long-term utility thesis, it helps to separate your read on the fundamentals from your read on the day-to-day noise. One moves slowly and deliberately. The other moves on headlines and sentiment. Confusing the two is how people abandon a sound thesis right before it plays out, or hold onto a bad one long after the evidence has turned.
Educational only, not tax, legal, or investment advice. Check primary sources and speak with a qualified professional before making financial decisions.
