[DigitalToday reporter Jinju Hong (홍진주)] XRP is drawing attention again on growing institutional investment and an increase in regulated financial products, but an analysis says it is not realistically easy for small investors to build $1 million in assets within 2026. As XRP has already entered the stage of a large cryptocurrency, it is seen as having a structure that makes it hard to reproduce the short-term, dozens-fold surges seen in the early altcoin market.

BeInCrypto, a blockchain media outlet, reported on May 7 local time that XRP is trading around $1.41. Its market capitalisation is about $87 billion, and its circulating supply exceeds 61.8 billion tokens. Given that scale, the outlet said it is difficult to expect a path similar to small cryptocurrencies that rise 100-fold within a few months.

That is changing the market’s questions. Rather than how high XRP can go, attention is shifting to how much XRP one must hold now to reach $1 million in assets. At the current price, an investor entering with less than $10,000 would need XRP to rise to $20, or even above $50, to reach the goal in a short time. Those levels are not included in the mainstream forecast range of major financial institutions, analysis platforms and artificial intelligence models, it said.

Institutional inflows are clearly a factor that is lifting expectations. Spot ETF flows recorded net inflows in 13 of the first 19 weeks of 2026, and cumulative inflows since the start of the year were tallied at about $157 million. Assets under management based on Sosovalue data are about $3.87 billion.

Related financial products are also increasing. Coinbase has started supporting trade-at-settlement for XRP futures, and GraniteShares confirmed the launch of a 3-times leveraged XRP ETF on Nasdaq. Ripple is also expanding cooperation related to financial infrastructure and international payments. This trend is being seen as material that raises expectations for XRP’s entry into the regulated financial system.

But expanding access to the regulated system does not guarantee an explosive rise. Standard Chartered presented $2.8 as its XRP price forecast for the end of 2026, while Motley Fool instead mentioned the possibility of a pullback to around $1.

AI models’ forecasts are also relatively conservative. ChatGPT projected an end-of-year XRP price of around $2.15 in a medium-probability scenario, and Grok presented a range of $2 to $3.5 depending on whether ETF growth continues. Anthropic’s Claude also stopped at mentioning the possibility of about $3.15 if favourable conditions such as rate cuts take shape.

BeInCrypto analysed that XRP would need much stronger inflows than now and exceptional market conditions to rise above $5. It said it is difficult to explain a sharp re-rating given the current market capitalisation and circulation structure.

Ultimately, an assessment says the investment case for XRP is closer to long-term asset accumulation than a structure aimed at a short-term jackpot as in the past. If ETFs and regulated financial products continue to expand, the possibility of a gradual price rise remains open. But it says it is not realistically easy for investors entering anew with limited funds to build $1 million in assets within a year. The gap in starting lines between existing low-price buyers and new investors would widen further.

As a result, analysis gaining traction in the market says XRP’s future upswing is more likely to work in favour of investors who have long held large amounts, rather than creating new short-term millionaires.