Brad Garlinghouse drops massive bombshell for XRP holders

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse made a public statement emphasizing that XRP remains central to the company’s long-term mission.

Namely, addressing the community directly on February 11 via X, Garlinghouse expressed confidence that Ripple has the potential to become a trillion-dollar crypto company, with the whole business revolving around XRP :

Garlinghouse also alluded to emerging technologies within the XRP ecosystem, particularly new advanced privacy features, such as zero-knowledge (zk) technology, which allow transactions to be verified without revealing sensitive data.

The XRP Ledger (XRPL) is positioning itself as a frontrunner in the race as of 2026, reportedly being among the closest major networks to unlock zk-privacy functionality in partnership with DNAOnChain.

XRP remains Ripple’s focus

Garlinghouse’s address made it clear that XRP is the core of the company’s broader financial infrastructure vision. With ‘all of it in service of the overall ecosystem,’ Ripple’s expanding suite of products, including Ripple Payments, Ripple Prime, Ripple Treasury, Custody, and the RLUSD stablecoin, are implied catalysts for XRP utility.

Indeed, Ripple Payments continues to push real-world adoption, particularly in cross-border settlements where XRP functions as a bridge asset. At the same time, upgrades to the Ledger, such as integrations into decentralized exchanges (DEX), also help facilitate more regulated financial activity.

Beyond product expansion, Ripple is accelerating its push into institutional markets. Notably, the CEO highlighted a new partnership with Aviva Investors, a global asset manager that is tokenizing assets on the XRPL. In the background, Ripple is also backing the XLS-66 lending framework and integrating XRP into Ripple Prime’s collateral and liquidity services.

For the community, all of this means that Ripple’s long-term growth plans are directly tied to expanding XRP’s real-world utility. Accordingly, if Ripple succeeds in scaling institutional adoption, integrating new privacy features, and embedding XRP into core financial infrastructure, demand for the asset could increasingly be driven by functionality rather than speculation alone, which could, in turn, be reflected in the price action. 

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