Crypto commentator Vincent Van Code laid out a scenario showing how a Fed “master account” for Ripple could reshape XRP’s role in global markets. The Federal Reserve is reportedly considering lightweight master accounts for crypto firms that would give them direct access to central bank payment rails. Van Code argues that if Ripple obtained such an account, it could hold RLUSD backing balances at the Fed without counterparty risk — and that the scale of potential issuance is eye‑opening.
Van Code’s core point links three ideas: Ripple’s plans to tokenize large treasury balances, the RLUSD/XRP pairing used for cross‑border asset exchanges, and how on‑chain liquidity could lift XRP’s price. He noted that Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has suggested a substantial portion of Ripple’s treasury business — figures bandied about in coverage range into the trillions — could migrate on‑chain over the next several years. Using Garlinghouse’s roughly 30% estimate, Van Code framed that percentage of Ripple’s cited treasury size as roughly $5 trillion, the same round number being discussed for a Fed master account.
From that starting point, Van Code sketched a simple model: if Ripple released about 1 billion XRP from escrow each month and the market valued XRP near $80, monthly flows would total roughly $80 billion and add up to about $5 trillion in five years. That arithmetic is the basis for his claim that an $80 per XRP outcome is plausible by the early 2030s under the stated assumptions. He acknowledged the model depends on multiple optimistic assumptions and said he could be wrong, but argued the numbers line up on paper. For long‑term holders who bought low, he suggested gains could be multiplicative if the scenario played out.
Other analysts have echoed the potential liquidity effects. ChartNerd highlighted Garlinghouse’s comments that moving around 30% of Ripple’s treasury business on‑chain would expand liquidity available to the crypto ecosystem. Ripple has been building treasury tools and integrating XRP and stablecoin rails, including RLUSD, into a single dashboard to make cross‑border payments faster and cheaper for business clients. Garlinghouse has pointed to growing adoption among mid‑sized and larger companies — he has named customers such as American Airlines as examples of firms using Ripple’s payments services.
A few caveats: the $5 trillion figure depends on the underlying treasury size quoted in different reports (figures like $13 trillion or $15 trillion have appeared in coverage) and on the pacing and pricing assumptions in Van Code’s model. Access to a Fed master account would change counterparty risk and settlement dynamics, but it would not by itself guarantee a specific XRP price. Market adoption, regulatory clarity, macro conditions, and the actual design and limits of any Fed account would all matter.
At the time of writing, XRP trades around $1.38 according to CoinMarketCap, reflecting how distant the hypothetical $80 outcome remains from current pricing. Still, Van Code’s outline is meant to show how a combination of on‑chain treasury flows, central bank plumbing, and new stablecoin rails could, in theory, concentrate trillions of dollars of liquidity into crypto rails and materially affect asset prices if the assumptions hold.