Strategy (formerly known as MicroStrategy) has been on a wild ride these past few years — defying naysayers by persevering through bear markets, amassing as much Bitcoin as possible, and accruing billions of dollars in paper profits.
The latest figures show the one-time business intelligence firm now holds 607,770 BTC, equivalent to 2.9% of the 21 million coins that will ever exist. It’s paid a grand total of $43.6 billion for the haul, and it’s now worth a cool $71.4 billion.
One area of concern that’s been bubbling away in recent months is the average price being paid per Bitcoin. Michael Saylor’s determination to make continuous purchases — even at all-time highs — means it’s on the rise. This now stands at $71,756, meaning there’s eroding headroom in the event of a bearish contraction.
But there’s another discussion doing the rounds on X at the moment: what if Strategy had actually backed a different horse… a cryptocurrency that had delivered more impressive returns since August 2020?
XRP vs Bitcoin
Matt Hamilton of ASIMOV Protocol has been crunching the numbers on this for some time. His figures suggest that, if Strategy had backed XRP instead of BTC, the company would be in the green by an even larger margin. This has been calculated assuming that the same number of dollars were invested in the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency, at exactly the same intervals.
When you look at how both digital assets have performed over the past five years, it’s much of a muchness. Bitcoin has surged by 894% over this timeframe, while XRP is ahead by 986%. But based on Hamilton’s calculations, investing solely in Ripple would mean this treasury is worth almost twice as much — over $130 billion compared with $71 billion.
So… why is this exactly? Well, it’s primarily down to two specific factors: the fact that Strategy’s investments have ramped up substantially over the past year or so, coinciding with XRP rallying hard as a long-running battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission fizzled out.
Bitcoin’s gains over the past 12 months stand at an impressive 75% — rallying from $67,000 to $117,000 at the time of writing. But XRP’s returns blow this out of the water. It’s seen a 423% surge from $0.60 to $3.16 in the same timeframe.
Back on August 1, 2024, Strategy was the proud owner of 226,500 BTC, meaning it has snapped up close to 400,000 BTC within the space of a year. As you can imagine, diverting all of this capital to XRP instead would have made quite a measurable difference.
Of course though, there’s no point talking in hypotheticals. As a famous Italian chef once said on British television, “if my grandma had wheels, she would have been a bike.” Being presented with these numbers would never change Saylor’s mind. Here’s why.
‘Bitcoin Rules Supreme’
As we’ve discussed in many articles in the past, Saylor’s views are crystal clear: “Bitcoin rules supreme and has no rivals.”
He’s an unashamed BTC maximalist, and has previously argued that XRP is nothing more than an unregistered security. The billionaire even believes that Bitcoin should have 95% dominance in the overall crypto market, leaving all remaining digital assets to fight over the remaining 5%.
And there’s a reason for this. In his eyes, Bitcoin is digital gold — perfect money that has the potential to be worth $1 million in the future, maybe even $10 million in decades to come. Saylor is adamant there is no second best, no plan B, and XRP will never factor in Strategy’s investment plans.
However, that isn’t to say that other institutions will subscribe to these views — even other treasury companies that are currently following in Strategy’s footsteps by investing their spare cash in Bitcoin. Should XRP continue to perform well, we could see greater levels of Wall Street interest in this digital asset.
The approval of an exchange-traded fund based on XRP’s spot price would go a long way to making this a reality. And as we’ve seen with Ether’s recent uptick, institutions are prepared to move away from Bitcoin and divert flows into alternative ETFs when the time is right.
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