Software engineer and founder of various artificial intelligence startups Vincent Van Code (@vincent_vancode) argues in X that most XRP burn forecasts are understated because they assume today’s low transaction fees persist even under bulky network load. According to him, persistent congestion on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) could result in increased fees through the protocol’s load scaling mechanisms, potentially wiping out approximately one billion XRP per year.

XRPL load factor can turn fees into stern XRP losses

In a thread titled “Supply Collapse Simulation,” Vincent Van Code stated that “everyone is miscalculating XRP consumption,” assuming that the widely quoted base fee of 0.00001 XRP merely reflects a still network. “But what happens if the world actually starts using XRPL at the 3,400 TPS limit?” he wrote, positioning load-based fee escalation as the key variable rather than raw capacity itself.

Van Code’s simulation cycles through multiple charging systems at the same headline activity rate, highlighting that burn changes dramatically when the ledger is full, and “Load Factor” increases fees to stop spam. “As the ledger fills up, a load factor kicks in to block spam,” he wrote. “Not only do fees remain low, they are increasing exponentially.”

He anchored the thread with four scenarios and daily burn estimates, starting with a so-called “standard day” of 1.2 million transactions and approximately 450 XRP burned per day. He then modeled “global adoption” at a quoted cap of 3,400 TPS, which translated to approximately 293 million transactions per day at the base fee and an estimated 2,937 XRP burned per day.

More aggressive claims come when it holds transaction volume constant at 293 million per day but raises the effective fee due to congestion. In its “congestion increases” case, it assumes that the load-based fee increases to 0.001 XRP, which means approximately 293,760 XRP is burned per day. In the case of a “full stalemate” at 0.01 XRP per transaction, he estimates that 2,937,600 XRP are burned per day.

The thesis is based on a structural feature of XRPL fees: they are not paid to validators or any sponsoring entity, but removed from circulation. Van Code emphasized this distinction directly. “Fees are not paid to miners. They are not paid to Ripple. They are destroyed forever.”

“Supply Collapse” simulation 🌋
Headline: Everyone is calculating $XRP smoke bad. 🧵
The “base fee” (0.00001 XRP) only exists when the network is serene. But what will happen if the world actually starts using XRPL at the 3,400 TPS limit?
Congestion math:
As…

— Vincent Van Code (@vincent_vancode) January 24, 2026

From this, he draws his main conclusion: “At extreme global utility, we don’t burn a few hundred tokens. We could wipe $1 billion of XRP out of existence every year,” calling network demand – and the congestion it causes – the “ultimate deflationary engine.”

At press time, the price of XRP was $1.88.

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com