A provocative post from crypto commentator Vincent Van Code suggests that Bitcoin was simply the experiment, while XRP represents the final form of money. In a detailed post on the social media platform X, Van Code outlined his theory, suggesting that XRP’s limitless liquidity design makes it far better for global finance than Bitcoin’s fixed-supply model.
Bitcoin Changed Everything, But Isn’t the Final Stop
Bitcoin introduced the world to the concept of decentralized digital currency with a limited supply. It broke away from traditional finance by removing the authority of banks and creating a decentralized system. The idea that money could exist entirely in digital form, without government backing, took hold through Bitcoin after its launch in 2009. It inspired millions and laid the foundation for what would become the crypto industry as we know it today.
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However, Van Code suggests that Bitcoin’s structure, which is built around scarcity, slow transaction speed, and high fees, ultimately limits its utility. According to him, Bitcoin served a psychological function: getting people used to the concept of intangible, value-agreed money. But its design was never meant to scale into a truly global liquidity solution. “It rewards hoarding, not utility,” he said.
He likened Bitcoin to a necessary first step: a proof-of-concept to prove digital scarcity has value and introduce decentralized finance. However, it’s slow, it’s expensive, and it can’t scale to global liquidity. As such, Van Code noted that perhaps Bitcoin was destined to be replaced by something more adaptable, something that serves not as a store of value but as a mechanism to move value.
XRP Is The End Game
Vincent Van Code’s argument is based on XRP’s design as a liquidity engine engineered for quick, trust-based exchange and not a speculative asset. He compared it to old barter systems that later adopted pine nuts as a unit of exchange. The pine nuts were not intrinsically valuable, but their universally accepted role allowed trade to flourish.
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The same principle applies to XRP. Its value lies not in what it’s backed by but in the global agreement that it can be trusted, even if only for a few seconds, to move value between parties efficiently.
Unlike Bitcoin, XRP does not depend on its very low supply for its use case. Instead, it acts as a neutral bridge. It’s a digital pine nut with the capacity to become an infinite liquidity engine, assuming global agreement. If the world were to agree that each XRP was worth $10,000, then that agreement alone would make it so.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $117,890 after peaking at an all-time high of $122,838 on July 14. The flagship cryptocurrency is now in a state of consolidation. Bitcoin bulls continue to project new highs, but its immediate momentum has slowed down. XRP, meanwhile, is also consolidating just below its recent all-time high of $3.65 on July 18. At the time of writing, XRP is trading at $3.44. It has experienced a pullback but is still within range of new price peaks.
Featured image from Adobe Stock, chart from Tradingview.com
