Mike Piteo

They said RLUSD was replacing $XRP and that XRP was only useful for gas fees. I've been explaining the bigger picture everyday. Now Brad Garlinghouse has said it himself: XRP is at the heart of everything Ripple does! I've seen this argument countless times. Every time Ripple announces something involving RLUSD, people immediately assume XRP is becoming less important. But during his October 28 Bloomberg interview at Ripple Swell 2026, Brad Garlinghouse explained exactly how Ripple sees the relationship between these two assets. And I think every XRP holder needs to understand what he said. RLUSD was designed to complement XRP. Brad explained that RLUSD helps Ripple introduce its financial technology to institutions that are already familiar with holding and transferring U.S. dollars. Think about a bank or a multinational corporation. Its first requirement might be managing digital dollars, settling payments, or moving funds between business accounts. RLUSD gives that institution a familiar starting point. But once the same institution needs to exchange dollars for euros, pesos, pounds, or yen, another requirement emerges. It needs liquidity between different currencies. And XRP was designed to serve that purpose. Unlike RLUSD, which represents a U.S. dollar, XRP can act as an intermediary between different currencies and digital assets. XRP Ledger already supports auto-bridging, allowing eligible currency exchanges to route through XRP when that provides better execution. That's much more interesting to me than simply looking at XRP's transaction fees. Now look at the actual numbers Ripple just reported. During Swell, Ripple announced that its business was approaching a $900 million annualized product revenue run rate. The company also reported: More than 1,700 institutional and enterprise relationships. Over 85 regulatory licenses. More than $16 trillion in transaction value enabled across its products during 2025. Ripple Payments approaching $150 billion in cumulative payment volume. And a threefold increase in customers using multiple Ripple solutions. The $16 trillion represents activity across Ripple's broader product portfolio, and I find the scale of that institutional business extremely encouraging. Because the more institutions use Ripple's financial services, the more opportunities Ripple has to introduce XRP liquidity into their operations. And RLUSD is already helping expand that ecosystem. Its market capitalization has reached approximately $2.6 billion, with around half of the supply issued on XRP Ledger. C2FO also confirmed that more than $1 billion in RLUSD had been issued on XRPL. That's a substantial amount of dollar-denominated liquidity available within the network. Now connect that with the latest announcements. Coinbase expanded RLUSD access through Coinbase Prime, Coinbase Exchange, and its retail application, with supported deposits and withdrawals across XRPL, Base, and Ethereum. BNY announced institutional custody support for both XRP and RLUSD. That directly strengthens the infrastructure available to institutions wanting to hold XRP. Robinhood expanded its relationship with Ripple across RLUSD settlement, Ripple Treasury, and Ripple Prime. Its broader business already serves 28.6 million funded customers. Bitso is working with Ripple on RLUSD and MXNB, bringing dollar- and Mexican peso-denominated liquidity into the same XRPL ecosystem. Now imagine the opportunity as more currencies become available. A company needs to settle an international payment. A liquidity provider finds an efficient route through XRP and maintains enough XRP inventory to handle repeated transactions. As more institutions use XRP-based conversion routes, I expect operational demand for XRP liquidity to become increasingly important. Let me put that into numbers. Suppose institutions eventually process $1 billion in daily XRP-bridged settlement. If the same liquidity turns over ten times per day, that represents approximately $100 million in working XRP inventory in a simplified model. At five turnovers, it becomes $200 million. At twenty turnovers, $50 million. These are illustrative scenarios, but they explain why I'm especially bullish on institutional XRP liquidity demand. And the financial connections keep expanding. Mastercard, WebBank, and Gemini are exploring RLUSD-based card settlement. Aviva Investors has tokenized investment fund share classes on XRPL. Franklin Templeton and DBS are developing tokenized fund trading and financing arrangements involving RLUSD. BlackRock's BUIDL and VanEck's VBILL, through Securitize, have RLUSD-related functionality. Standard Chartered and LMAX are developing institutional custody and collateral infrastructure. Brevan Howard has expanded its relationship with Ripple Prime. And Ripple Treasury already serves more than 1,000 customers across 160 countries, with existing corporate relationships including American Airlines, Subway, Adecco, Trax, Christian Louboutin, and Kingfisher. Then add Ripple's October 26 final OCC approval to establish Ripple National Trust Bank. I see all these developments creating more opportunities for financial institutions to use Ripple's services and eventually access XRP where cross-currency liquidity is useful. So what am I expecting next? Through the remainder of 2026, I'm watching XRP custody expansion, RLUSD liquidity, and new institutional integrations. During 2027, I'm expecting more progress in international payment corridors and XRP-based settlement activity. Looking toward 2028–2030, my strongest bullish scenario involves financial institutions maintaining XRP inventories to support recurring currency conversions. That operational demand is the part of XRP's future I'm most excited about. I've been bullish on XRP for years because I see its potential role in connecting global financial markets. Brad Garlinghouse just made Ripple's strategy clear. RLUSD brings more institutions into its ecosystem, and XRP remains central to its cross-currency liquidity vision. I'm expecting the coming years to reveal just how important that relationship becomes. LOCKED IN!