"If I had 500,000 XRP, I would immediately convert it to bitcoin": Peter Brandt

• Brandt has made it clear on several occasions his rejection of XRP.
• The XRP community expresses concern over the performance of the cryptocurrency.

Veteran analyst Peter Brandt dismissed a 500,000 XRP offer made by Wall Street trader Thomas Laresca. The investor challenged the analyst to bet on the future price of the cryptocurrency issued by Ripple.

Brandt firmly rejected participating in the challenge posed by the market trader. "I make all my bets in futures," the specialist stated. "I couldn't care less about owning half a million XRP. I would immediately convert it to bitcoin (BTC)," the analyst added in his post on X on August 15, 2026.

The conflict began when Laresca, a well-known advocate of the XRP crypto asset, challenged Brandt to test his market projections on the asset. "I was the one who offered Peter Brandt the bet of 200,000 XRP, and when he said it was too small, I raised it to 500,000 XRP," explained the trader.

Laresca maintained that his initiative aimed to measure the certainty of technical analyses through real capital. "No hype. Just conviction. Let the market decide," the trader added after inviting other critics of the cryptocurrency to take on the trading performance challenge.

However, Brandt outright rejected the validity of the proposed trading challenge. "Are you kidding? Who the hell cares about XRP?" responded the veteran investor. "Please, grow up. You're acting like a high school kid," Brandt reprimanded.

This dispute is framed within Brandt's ongoing critical stance towards XRP investors. The analyst argues that these investors are among the most biased traders he has encountered during his five-decade career in the stock markets.

On December 29, 2025, Brandt stated: "In my trading history since 1975 (when silver was at $5), no group of traders has been easier to provoke than the XRP and silver bulls." Days earlier, he had labeled them as "the most crazily obsessed perma-bulls on Earth."

Additionally, the analyst often reinforces his questioning by pointing out that the "perma-bulls"—a financial term referring to investors who maintain a permanently optimistic stance on an asset regardless of market trends—of silver and XRP are the "most 'uneducated and biased' investors" he has observed during fifty years of his career.

Brandt's preference for bitcoin remains firm even as his projections for bitcoin foresee drastic corrections. In his most recent analyses, Brandt projects that the price floor for bitcoin will be established by October. This minimum level could be between $40,000 and $50,000 per unit, implying a potential retracement of up to 37% from the current $63,540.

Despite anticipating this temporary bearish scenario, Brandt maintains his preference to shift his funds towards bitcoin rather than hold XRP. This position underscores his analytical bias towards assets with greater global liquidity and mature infrastructure in derivative markets compared to alternative cryptocurrencies.

The controversy between Brandt and Laresca coincides with a period of operational weakness for Ripple's cryptocurrency. The price of XRP is currently trading around one dollar per unit. The coin has recorded an 8% depreciation over the last month and remains 73% below its all-time high of $3.65, reached in July 2025.

The negative performance of the quotation has directly impacted the sentiment of asset holders, as reported by CriptoNoticias. In specialized discussion forums like the XRP subreddit, there are constant expressions of regret and resignation from community members regarding the stagnation of prices.

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