XRP's $32.91 Target Traces Back to a 2018 Paper, Not BlackRock

The $32.91 figure going around XRP circles this week is not a BlackRock price target. It comes from a June 2018 research paper called A Fundamental Valuation Framework for Cryptoassets, written by Robert Mitchnick and Susan Athey.

Mitchnick is now BlackRock's head of digital assets. That is the connection. The paper is a valuation exercise, and $32.91 is one end of a scenario inside it, not a forecast the asset manager published.

What the Paper Says About XRP

The authors built two outcomes. In the "XRP Success Case", XRP is adopted as part of a widely used cross-border payments standard and used by financial institutions, corporations and individuals to settle foreign exchange transactions. The paper assigned that case a 25% probability and assumed XRP was effectively worthless in the failure case.

Inside the success case, the model produced estimates of $6.37 and $32.91. The paper is blunt about what those are: "> This represents the potential value of XRP, in present value terms, if the “XRP Success Case” is realized."

The paper's headline fundamental value range for XRP was $1.59 to $8.23, against a trading range of about $0.49 to $3.72 year to date when it was published.

The Assumptions Behind $32.91

The success scenario needed daily XRP transaction volume of about $190 billion to $560 billion by 2030, plus a parameter for time between transactions set between 0.5 and 10 days.

The authors flagged how loose that is. The paper says it "does not rely on any new information into the likelihood of various scenarios, such that the magnitudes presented should be taken as illustrative of the approach."

A disclosure in the paper matters too. Athey, described there as a director of Ripple Labs, holds an equity position in Ripple Labs, which in turn holds a large position in XRP. Mitchnick's author note says he was an MBA candidate at the Stanford Graduate School of Business who spent time with Ripple in the summer of 2017. Earlier versions of the paper were drafted from July 2017.

Where the Viral Number Comes From

Posts this week revived the claim that BlackRock has a $32.91 XRP target, pointing at the paper because one of its authors now works for the asset manager.

No evidence has surfaced that BlackRock holds or has issued a $32.91 XRP target, and no BlackRock statement confirming or denying one could be found. The paper's own caveat is the clearest reason to treat the number as a model output rather than a company view: its figures illustrate an approach, and the top one only exists if a 25% scenario plays out.

A separate post asked why Mitchnick would remove his Ripple stint from LinkedIn. That could not be checked against the profile itself, so it stays unverified. Public descriptions of his Ripple years disagree as well: the paper places him there in the summer of 2017, while other accounts describe a 2013 role and a much earlier start at BlackRock.

What Would Make the Target Real

A price target becomes a BlackRock target when BlackRock publishes one, in a filing, a research note or a public statement. Nothing of the sort sits behind the $32.91 figure.

For you, the practical point is simpler than the argument around it. The number is a 2018 model output with a one-in-four scenario behind it, and it is being passed around because of who later hired one of the people who built it. A BlackRock document stating its own XRP view would settle the question. Until one exists, $32.91 belongs to the paper.