Key Notes
- Garlinghouse sees XRP taking a larger institutional payment role over the next five years.
- Ripple will still use fiat and RLUSD where they better fit customer transactions.
- Company-wide transaction totals and revenue projections do not measure XRP usage.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse sees XRP developing into a standard for institutional crypto-payment infrastructure over the next five years. His outlook leaves room for banks and businesses to use fiat currencies and stablecoins alongside the token.
The comments came in a BankXRP interview at Ripple Swell, shared on October 29 UTC and revisited in a November 2 Bitcoin.com report. They describe a long-term ambition, rather than a new industry agreement adopting XRP.
— BankXRP (@BankXRP) October 29, 2026
Where XRP Fits Alongside RLUSD
Asked about the five-year outlook, Garlinghouse described XRP as “the institutional gold standard for crypto rails.” He said Ripple would prioritize XRP where it suited the customer’s needs, while acknowledging that other transactions were better served by fiat or its dollar-backed RLUSD stablecoin.
His argument was that XRP handling part of a customer’s activity could still be valuable, even if Ripple used different payment methods for the rest. Expansion of Ripple’s overall business therefore should not be read as a commitment to settle every transaction in XRP.
The distinction is visible in our Coinbase coverage: the partnership expands access to RLUSD, a separate dollar-backed asset. Our Robinhood report likewise separates live stablecoin services from planned institutional integrations.
Ripple’s Business Volume Is Not XRP Volume
Ripple’s October 28 company update said its products enabled more than $16 trillion in transactions during 2025. That is a company-wide figure, spanning its broader financial infrastructure; it is not a measure of transactions settled using XRP.
The same release said Ripple was on track to exit 2026 at an annualized product-revenue run rate of $900 million. A year-end run rate is a projection of business pace, rather than confirmation that it has already booked that amount in full-year revenue.
The company’s expansion includes payments, custody, prime brokerage and corporate treasury. Its treasury announcement, covered in our treasury report, combines cash-management tools with optional digital-asset workflows.
An Adoption Forecast, Not a Price Target
Garlinghouse’s five-year view concerns XRP’s role in institutional finance. It does not specify a token-price target, a guaranteed share of global payments or a binding timetable for banks to adopt it.
The test for that outlook will be how much customer activity actually uses XRP, alongside the fiat and stablecoin options Ripple continues to support.
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