Ripple CEO: XRP could reach $16 trillion in institutional flows

Brad Garlinghouse, chief executive of Ripple, said in a June 26 interview that XRP could tap roughly $16 trillion in annual payments and clearing activity across businesses the company added through acquisitions.

He described transactions using digital assets as “close to zero percent” of that volume, and framed the gap as an opportunity to integrate blockchain settlement with existing institutional payment systems.

Ripple has added custody, brokerage and enterprise finance capabilities through acquisitions. The company is aligning those pieces to link on‑ramps and back‑office services with large corporate and bank payment flows, positioning XRP as a potential settlement layer for institutional activity.

David Schwartz, Ripple’s chief technology officer emeritus, has outlined additional uses for the XRP Ledger beyond cross‑border payments, including tokenization, interoperability, decentralized finance and artificial intelligence. Ripple plans to present those applications at Swell 2026, which the company expects will host more than 1,500 attendees, over 75 speakers and more than 50 sessions.

Stablecoin settlement is part of Ripple’s cross‑border approach. Ripple and exchange Bitso are deploying MXNB and RLUSD on the XRP Ledger to provide regulated dollar‑peso liquidity for U.S.‑Mexico payments. Bitso serves more than 10 million users and more than 2,000 institutional customers. Ripple says the stablecoins are intended to speed settlement while maintaining regulatory compliance in the corridor.

Market infrastructure tied to XRP has grown. Ripple Prime acted as a clearing and financing partner in the launch of 24/7 crypto futures and options at a major derivatives venue, and XRP futures once exceeded $1 billion in open interest within three months of trading. Those developments aim to give institutional participants regulated market access to XRP and related exposure.

Ripple Treasury allows organizations to hold and manage XRP and RLUSD alongside cash and other financial assets, giving treasurers a way to use digital assets for liquidity and hedging while keeping links to legacy systems. The XRP Ledger Foundation has increased coordination among developers, validators and infrastructure providers to support enterprise deployments.

Garlinghouse added, “We’ve seen tremendous demand.” He also posed the question, “How do we bring traditional finance into the modern architecture of blockchain?” Ripple’s public strategy focuses on institutional settlement and expanding market plumbing for digital assets rather than consumer speculation.