In a livestream on October 22, 2025, crypto commentator Zach Rector argued that an XRP supply squeeze in 2025 is effectively “baked in,” contending that pending spot exchange-traded funds and a wave of “digital asset treasury” vehicles will lock up meaningful amounts of circulating supply.
Rector anchored his thesis to what he described as empirics from last year’s trading. Citing his own notes, he said that in November 2024 net inflows to XRP totaled only 118 million, while market capitalization rose by 105 billion,” implying, in his framing, an “883x market cap multiplier over a one-month period.” Anticipating skepticism about the short-window math, he countered that the same dynamic can cut both ways during liquidations. “It works on inflows coming in and price going up. It also works when there’s mass FUD and we get selling and people want to leave,” he said.
“What you see is XRP’s market cap growing by 500 billion… If we get 10 billion of inflows… you’re looking at a trillion of market cap growth,” he said, adding that at “around a 60 billion circulating supply” that math “is about a $17 to $20 XRP.” He stressed that the precise number is unknowable but the direction, in his view, is not: “It’s not a riddle… it’s rather simple math at this point.”
He read from an SBI Holdings press statement announcing a $200 million PIPE alongside Ripple and other investors, saying proceeds would be used “primarily to purchase XRP in the open market to build one of the world’s largest public XRP treasuries,” with audited reporting.
Rector framed timing risk around Washington, asserting that a US government shutdown, which he said began on October 1 and had reached “21 days,” is delaying ETF approvals. He repeatedly caveated his 2025 call with the shutdown wildcard: “The only way that we don’t get a supply shock here in 2025 is if the government stays shut down throughout the rest of this year… Very unlikely, [but] that is the one caveat.”
He added that, consistent with prior crypto cycles, he expects a “buy the rumor, sell the news” pullback on the day spot products go live, even as he maintains a bullish net view on cumulative inflows over subsequent weeks and months.
At press time, XRP traded at $2.39.
