Payment utility can be one possible influence on XRP’s price, but the ability to use XRP for payments does not by itself show that payment demand is driving its market value. The key distinctions are whether payments are actually made, whether those payments create a sustained need to hold XRP, and how those forces compare with trading, liquidity, supply, competition and sentiment. An October 2, 2026, 24/7 Wall St. report said Peter Brandt had called XRP a “fool coin” and that Evernorth planned to list under XRPN on Nasdaq on October 8; neither the remark’s original context nor the reported listing details are independently established here.
Does payment utility count for anything in XRP’s price?
It can count as one potential input, not as a demonstrated explanation for a particular price move. The Bitwise XRP ETF’s 2025 Form 10-K, filed with the SEC on March 20, 2026, lists adoption of XRP as a medium of exchange, store of value or other consumptive asset among possible price factors. The same risk disclosure also names sentiment, trading-platform activity, liquidity, publicly available supply, competition from digital assets and payment services, regulation, transaction fees and settlement speed.
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That list is a catalog of possible influences, not a measurement of how much each one matters or whether its effect is positive or negative. The filing gives no statistic establishing a causal link between payment utility and XRP’s price. It is a fund sponsor’s disclosure, not an independent study of payment activity.
Payment capability, adoption and demand to hold XRP are different things
Capability is not the same as use
A network may support payments without many people or businesses choosing to use it. The Bitwise filing says: “XRP is only selectively accepted as a means of payment by retail and commercial outlets, and use of XRP by consumers to pay such retail and commercial outlets remains limited.” That describes a gap between what the asset can do and the payment use the filing says is occurring.
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Use is not automatically sustained holding demand
A payment route can involve XRP without requiring each customer or merchant to keep a large XRP balance. In a possible intermediary-based flow, a service could convert funds into XRP for settlement and out again soon afterward. That may create transaction demand or temporary access needs, but transaction throughput alone does not establish how much XRP must be held, for how long, or by whom.
This is a mechanism to consider, not a measured XRP valuation model. The October 2 24/7 Wall St. report made a similar point using Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity example, but the cited sources do not quantify the effect of that flow on market demand or price.
What Brandt’s reported remark does—and does not—establish
The October 2, 2026, 24/7 Wall St. article attributed the “fool coin” label to Peter Brandt in September. The available report does not establish the original post, its full context or a directly verified, complete quotation. The phrase should therefore be treated as a characterization reproduced by secondary reporting, not as a measured finding about XRP’s payment utility or investment value.
Would Evernorth’s reported Nasdaq listing mean new XRP buyers?
Not necessarily. The same 24/7 Wall St. report said Evernorth held 473 million XRP and was scheduled to begin trading on Nasdaq under XRPN on October 8, 2026, after a merger approval. Those are secondary-source claims; no primary company or exchange filing confirming the holding and scheduled date was established here. Treat the listing as reported and expected, not confirmed.
A publicly traded company whose treasury includes XRP could give equity investors a way to obtain exposure through its shares. But listing shares is not the same transaction as buying additional XRP. Whether there is incremental token demand depends on whether the company acquires more XRP and how it finances and manages its treasury. The reported 473 million figure, even if confirmed, would describe a reported holding—not by itself a new purchase caused by the listing.
How to judge whether payment use is becoming price-relevant
For XRP or another payment asset, “fast and cheap” is not enough to establish an investment case. A useful comparison asks what happens across the full payment route:
- Actual acceptance and usage: Which merchants or payment services accept the asset, and are payments happening at meaningful scale?
- Holding requirement: Must the sender, recipient or intermediary hold the asset, or can it be converted in and out during settlement? If held, for how long and in what quantity?
- Transaction economics: What fees and settlement times apply in real use, rather than in a feature description?
- Liquidity and access: Can users convert into and out of the asset reliably in the markets and jurisdictions they need?
- Constraints and alternatives: How do regulation and operational requirements compare with competing digital assets and conventional payment services?
The Bitwise filing identifies several of these dimensions as potential risks or price factors, but it does not provide an apples-to-apples study showing how XRP performs against alternatives. Until adoption, required holding balances and their connection to market demand are established, payment utility is a plausible part of the thesis—not proof that utility is setting the price.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsWhat the October 2026 price snapshot can tell you
In its October 2, 2026, report, 24/7 Wall St. put XRP at $1.52 and said it was about 58% below a reported July 2025 peak of $3.65. The article also said XRP lagged Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana over its selected 90-day and one-year comparisons. These are dated figures and comparisons from that report, not independently reproduced here; the return windows’ exact start and end dates are not specified in the cited material.
Even if the snapshot is accurate, relative performance cannot identify the cause. It does not show whether payment utility helped, hurt or had little effect compared with trading activity, sentiment, liquidity, supply, regulation or competition.
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