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Pundit Shows How XRP’s Performance Has Outpaced Hedge Funds

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Crypto pundit Vandell has highlighted how XRP has outperformed hedge funds since its launch despite criticism of its price appreciation. The pundit also declared that the altcoin is bound to increase over time, regardless of its utility. 

How XRP Has Outperformed Hedge Funds

In an X post, Vandell noted that XRP rose from its 2014 bottom of roughly $0.0028 to an all-time high (ATH) of $3.64 in 2025, representing roughly a 129,900% return. Additionally, the altcoin rose from a low of $0.11 in 2020 to the $3.64 high in 2025, marking a return of around 33x in just five years. 

The pundit stated that XRP has made the world’s top hedge funds look like “savings accounts,” having outperformed since its launch. He added that the bigger move for the altcoin is yet to come, suggesting the token could see astronomical gains. Vandell declared that utility and adoption are just “icing on the cake” for the token, creating more demand. 

He affirmed that the altcoin will appreciate regardless of utility as long as the money supply increases over time. Meanwhile, other pundits like X Finance Bull have highlighted that the passage of the CLARITY Act could serve as a catalyst for massive growth in XRP. Vandell also signaled that the crypto bill will boost it, with trillions of dollars flowing into the crypto industry. 

This came as he noted that trillions of deployable institutional capital remain constrained by regulatory clarity and macro conditions before meaningfully allocating to crypto. He added that the scale of inflows will be ‘historic’ once clarity improves and macro conditions align. On the macro side, there are currently inflation concerns, especially as the Iran war continues to drive oil prices higher. 

On Whether It Can Reach $1,000

In another X post, Vandell said that XRP can reach $1,000 overtime as long as the uptrend remains intact. He acknowledged that such a rally could take several years, or even decades, to reach this level. The pundit added that supply and demand will be key to determining when it can reach this level.

He noted that XRP has a limited supply, while the token has continued to see a sustained demand. Vandell explained that fiat debasement has contributed to this demand, while retail and institutional investors are also accumulating the token based on the token’s utility. The pundit concluded that it will likely continue to rise as long as it remains relevant in the crypto space and sustains this demand. As such, he believes market participants should be looking to position for this price surge rather than fixating on when exactly it will happen. 

At the time of writing, the XRP price is trading at around $1.44, up in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

XRP
XRP trading at $1.45 on the 1D chart | Source: XRPUSDT on Tradingview.com

Featured image from Getty Images, chart from Tradingview.com

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Aave Deposits Drop by $15B Following Kelp DAO Exploit

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Aave, the largest decentralized lending protocol, has seen around $15 billion in deposits withdrawn since the Kelp Dao exploit on Saturday. 

Total value supplied to Aave fell from $45.8 billion on Saturday to $30.8 billion on Wednesday, according to Aavescan data.

The decline followed an attack that drained about 116,500 restaked Ether (rsETH), worth roughly $293 million, from Kelp DAO’s LayerZero-powered rsETH bridge. The exploiter then used part of the stolen funds to borrow on Aave.

Aave’s incident report said 89,567 rsETH were deposited on the protocol and that the resulting shortfall could range from about $123 million to $230 million, depending on how losses are ultimately allocated.

The outflows reflect fears of contagion from Aave’s bad debt and broader capital flight from decentralized finance (DeFi), according to institutional digital asset trading platform Talos.

The bad debt created by the Kelp exploiter resulted in Aave’s v3 Wrapped Ether (WETH) market temporarily reaching 100% utilization and leaving no liquidity available for immediate withdrawals, Talos said in a Tuesday report.

Total amount supplied in Aave, 3-month chart. Source: Aavescan

SparkLend’s total value locked (TVL) rose by $1.3 billion since the Kelp DAO exploit, signaling that the fourth-largest lending protocol was absorbing some of the funds withdrawn from Aave, blockchain analyst EmberCN said in a Wednesday post on X.

Related: Crypto hackers stole $17B over past 10 years: DefiLlama

Kelp exploit spreads through DeFi lending

The episode highlights how DeFi’s interconnectedness is a double-edged sword, as the Kelp DAO exploit spread across lending markets and escalated into a “broader liquidity crunch,” Tanay Ved, senior research associate at Talos, told Cointelegraph.

She said the asset bundled risks across restaking, bridging and lending layers, allowing the impact to spread far beyond the initial exploit, adding that the incident reinforces the need for a more robust collateral framework and a more holistic security approach to address the systemic vulnerabilities of yield-bearing assets.

Aave v3 Market Utilization Rate percentage across USDC, USDT, WETH, USDe. Source: Talos

Aave said it had unfrozen WETH reserves on the Ethereum Core V3 market on Tuesday, enabling users to supply WETH to the V3 lending protocol, but WETH reserves across Ethereum Prime, Arbitrum, Base, Mantle and Linea remain frozen.

Related: Kelp DAO attacker moves $175M in Ether after exploit: Arkham

Traders bet Kelp DAO won’t socialize losses

On Monday, Aave’s risk manager outlined two potential scenarios for addressing the bad debt. The first scenario involves spreading the losses across all rsETH token holders on Ethereum mainnet and layer-2s, leaving about $123 million in bad debt on Aave.

The alternative would shift the shortfall entirely to layer-2 networks, resulting in about $230 million in bad debt on Aave.

Traders took to prediction markets to bet on the outcome, with 20% of traders wagering on Kelp DAO socializing the losses across rsETH holders on mainnet, rather than L2 holders bearing the shortfall, Polymarket data shows.

Magazine: 53 DeFi projects infiltrated, 50M NEO tokens could be ‘given back’: Asia Express