XRP and the Bagpipe GIF: What David Schwartz Says About Price Signals

On September 21, 2026, former Ripple CTO David Schwartz posted a GIF of bagpipes during an online back-and-forth. Within hours, parts of the XRP community had decided it was a coded signal that something big was about to happen. The next day, Schwartz replied that when the pipes started playing, it often meant it was time to move away from the bagpipes.

The joke is minor. The habit it exposed is not. This article covers what Schwartz has actually said about XRP’s price, his short piece of math about $10,000 XRP, what happened when markets did treat a meme as a signal, and a simple habit that keeps the next “signal” from steering your decisions.

Who is David Schwartz?

David Schwartz is one of the designers of the XRP Ledger. According to the video, he spent 13 years at Ripple, most recently as chief technology officer. At the end of 2025 he stepped back from the CTO job, joined Ripple’s board and took the title CTO Emeritus. He still posts often, and much of it is jokes.

He has also been consistent about one thing: he does not claim to know where the price is going. In a clip shown in the video, he says anyone who tells you they know is lying, that experts will often admit they have no idea what is going on, and that he is “constantly surprised by market behavior.”

Why did the bagpipe GIF look like a signal?

To some holders, the bagpipes looked like a callback. According to reporting cited in the video, the GIF was linked to an image posted in 2017 by “Bearableguy123,” the anonymous account behind years of XRP riddles. That image showed an astronaut playing bagpipes on the moon.

The theory that spread was that bagpipes were what armies played to tell troops to advance, so the post meant something was about to begin. The video’s point is that the theory spread because it told people what they wanted to hear after years of waiting.

Schwartz’s reply ended it. The reporting summed up his message the way it has every time this happens: don’t treat his jokes as investment signals, and judge things on actual statements and market data. According to the video, he has had to shoot down earlier rumors too, including a so-called “magic button” and the idea that XRP was secretly chosen as the world’s reserve currency.

What did Schwartz say about $10,000 XRP?

Schwartz’s most useful comment on all of this is a piece of logic, not a joke. On May 1, 2026, when XRP was trading around $1.37, he posted:

If there were a few very rich, very rational people who really believed there was a 1% chance of $10,000 XRP within 10 years, they’d already have bid it up to at least $20.

He is not saying XRP can’t rise. He is saying the current price is already the market’s best estimate, set by people with large amounts of money and research behind them. If there were a real, knowable signal that $10,000 was coming, those buyers would not wait for a GIF. The price would already show it.

That leaves a secret signal with two options. Either big money can see it too, and it is already in the price, or it isn’t a signal.

Does XRP’s price reflect Ripple’s success?

Schwartz has said for years that there is little visible link. Asked at South by Southwest in 2019 about the relationship between XRP’s price and Ripple’s success, he said there “doesn’t seem to be any.” He noted that Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Stellar Lumens and Litecoin tended to move together, as if the market were betting on the space as a whole.

He added that the only events clearly correlated with crypto prices were exchange listings, such as the old “Coinbase effect,” while real news from project teams often produced no movement. The video argues that this is exactly why communities go hunting for riddles, numbers and GIFs instead.

Schwartz said what he would rather be judged on: whether the team is developing new and useful technology, whether it has product-market fit, and whether it meets people’s needs. “Judge us on the right metrics,” he said.

What happens when memes move markets?

Memes can move prices. The video gives two examples:

When	What happened
May 12, 2024	Keith Gill (“Roaring Kitty”) posted for the first time in three years, a cryptic picture of someone leaning forward in a chair. GameStop rose more than 100% and was halted for volatility several times.
June 17, 2024	During a Roaring Kitty livestream in which he said little that was new, GameStop fell around 40%.
February 2021	Elon Musk tweeted about Dogecoin and it rose about 72% overnight, according to a news clip in the video.
May 8, 2021	Musk joked on Saturday Night Live that Dogecoin was a hustle, and it fell nearly 30% during the show.

The lesson the video draws: when a meme moves a price, the move is real but borrowed. Nothing about the business changed. The people who profit are usually the ones who were in before the post, not those who read about it afterward.

How do false signals grow?

The video describes a four-step pattern:

1. Something small and real happens. A post, a picture, a date or a number. Schwartz really did post bagpipes.
2. Someone adds a meaning. Bagpipes mean advance. That meaning is the part nobody can check, and it does all the work.
3. It gets repeated. Screenshots, threads and videos make it feel more true, even though nothing new is added.
4. The price moves, as it always does. If it rises, the signal “worked.” If it falls, the signal was “early.” Either way the story survives.

A signal that can’t be wrong isn’t telling you anything. The test the video suggests: ask what result would prove the signal wrong. If the answer is nothing, it isn’t information.

What do regulators say about investment tips on social media?

US regulators warn against exactly this behavior, and the video notes the warning applies to every investing video, including its own. Lori Schock, who runs the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy, says in clips shown in the video that you should never be pressured into a quick decision, because legitimate investments will still be there next week, next month or next year. She also warns against relying on celebrity endorsements and “finfluencers,” and describes how fraudsters pump up a meme coin on social media and then sell, leaving other investors holding it. Her advice: don’t make decisions based solely on social media.

FINRA, which oversees US brokerage firms, reviewed more than a thousand social media posts from paid influencers promoting financial firms. According to the clip in the video, about 70% were non-compliant in some substantive way: 55% did not disclose that they were paid ads, 38% failed to disclose risks, and about 30% contained promissory or exaggerated claims.

The video is careful to say nobody suggests the bagpipe post was a scam. Schwartz was joking, and said so. The concern is that treating posts as signals makes holders easy targets for people who are not joking.

What should XRP holders watch instead?

Ripple’s leaders have pointed to use, not riddles. In a September 2017 Bloomberg interview shown in the video, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said real value comes from solving real-world problems, such as making payments, securities settlement and trade finance more efficient, as opposed to just speculating.

The questions that matter, per the video, are the ones Schwartz named: Are people using it? Does it solve a real problem? Is that use growing? The answers tend to show up in public interviews, filings and data, not in GIFs.

A simple habit: keep a signal log

The video suggests a habit it calls a signal log:

1. Every time a post feels like a signal (a cryptic picture, a date, a number, a hint from someone important), write down the date, what it was and what people said it meant.
2. Set a reminder for 30 days later.
3. When it comes up, write down what actually happened.

After a few months, you will have your own record of how many signals turned out to be nothing. The next time one appears, it becomes another line in the log rather than a reason to act.

Going forward, the things worth checking are Schwartz’s and Ripple’s actual statements, filings and usage data. A GIF, a date or a number should prompt one question: what would prove this wrong?