XRP Ledger AI Payments Hit 12 Million Amid $500 Price Target Skepticism

The XRP Ledger (XRPL) has hit a major milestone with its AI payment tracker surpassing 12 million transactions, settling approximately 6,886 XRP and 10,744 RLUSD. Ripple's engineering leadership has celebrated this growth, positioning the network as critical infrastructure for the emerging machine economy.

Despite the impressive transaction volume, the settlement totals remain modest, raising questions about the feasibility of a viral $500 XRP prediction by 2035. The milestone highlights a disconnect between transaction volume and the demand needed to sustain such a dramatic price target. Over the past week, the XRPL AI Hub recorded an average of 450,667 payments per day, with 163 registered merchants facilitating these transactions.

RippleX engineering head J. Ayo Akinyele emphasized the network's role in enabling AI agents to autonomously purchase services like data and AI processing. However, crypto analyst Sam Daodu challenged the $500 price target, arguing that the valuation assumptions are flawed. He noted that a token can be reused across multiple transactions, meaning payment counts don't necessarily translate to increased demand for XRP.

With XRP currently trading at $1.52, reaching $500 would require a roughly 329-fold increase, or a 32,795% gain. Even a rally to $10 would still leave XRP needing another 4,900% increase to hit the target. While the growing AI payment activity on XRPL demonstrates a developing use case, it remains unclear whether this will generate the sustained demand necessary to support such a massive price increase.