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Market data confirms that, despite its years-long underperformance, XRP has outperformed both the S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100 in the past decade.
Despite its most recent 580% rally from November 2024 to January 2025, several critics have downplayed XRP’s ability to yield returns, often pointing to its extensive period of underperformance from January 2018 to late 2024.
Concerns Over XRP’s Years of Underperformance
For context, after reaching a new all-time high of $3.8 in January 2018, XRP collapsed immediately. Over the years, it attempted multiple times to reclaim the previous high, but failed at several resistance points, unable to even recover the $2 mark. As a result, XRP missed the 2021 bull run, only peaking at $1.96.
This underperformance led to concerns, with some, like Raoul Pal, previously warning that it could miss this year’s bull run. However, XRP recovered most of the lost time, by rallying to now sit above the $2 price. Despite this, critics argue that it has made no meaningful gains and only moved to its starting point in 2018.
While several proponents have argued that another upsurge to reach greater heights remains in store for XRP, we recently collected data that indicates that despite XRP’s years of underperformance, it has still performed better than most traditional investments in the past decade.
XRP Outperforms the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ 100
Notably, the S&P 500, which tracks the performance of the 500 largest public firms in the U.S., and the NASDAQ 100, a measure of the performance of the 100 largest non-financial companies on Nasdaq, have both been praised for their attractive returns over the years. Nonetheless, market data indicates that XRP has performed better over a 10-year span.
Specifically, the NASDAQ 100 (NDX) traded for $4,588 in June 2015. Ten years later, it now changes hands at $22,447, marking a 389% gain in a decade.
Also, the S&P 500 (SPX), which changed hands at $2,063 in June 2015, now trades for $6,141. This represents a 197% increase over the past decade.
However, XRP traded for as low as $0.011 in June 2015, ten years ago. Today, it now has a value of $2.1 amid a downturn this month. Despite the downturn, the market data indicates that XRP has gained 18,990% in the last decade.
To put things into perspective, an investor who committed $10,000 to the S&P 500 in June 2015 would now be sitting on $29,700. Further, those who instead invested the $10,000 in the NASDAQ 100 would see returns of $48,900. Meanwhile, if they had turned to XRP, the $10,000 would now be worth $1.9 million.
Notably, this comparison indicates that XRP has gained by a massive 6,312% against the SPX over the past decade. In addition, XRP is up 3,801% in the last ten years.