The XRP community is buzzing after a resurfaced 2018 interview with Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse gained new relevance, coinciding with the company's recent strategic milestone of becoming a SWIFT Certified Partner. In the old Bloomberg interview, Garlinghouse boldly stated Ripple was effectively "taking over SWIFT" by solving banking inefficiencies with blockchain technology.
Fast forward to 2026, Ripple's vision is materializing through institutional expansion. The company has processed over $100 billion in transaction volume and expanded its On-Demand Liquidity services globally. A key development is Ripple Treasury—built following the $1 billion acquisition of GTreasury—achieving SWIFT Certified Partner status. This integration connects the platform to SWIFT's Alliance Lite2 for direct bank connectivity and incorporates SWIFTRef data for payment verification.
Ripple Treasury now allows institutions to manage fiat, RLUSD (Ripple's regulated stablecoin), and XRP within a single system, merging traditional treasury workflows with blockchain settlement. This move is framed as strengthening interoperability between digital assets and established banking rails, positioning Ripple not as a replacement for SWIFT, but as a complementary infrastructure provider within the global financial system.
The partnership has revived ambitious projections for the XRP Ledger (XRPL). At the 2025 XRPL Apex event, Garlinghouse reiterated that the XRPL could process 14% of SWIFT's annual transaction volume within five years. Given SWIFT handles roughly $150 trillion yearly, a 14% share equates to nearly $21 trillion flowing through XRP annually. Analysts estimate this scale of utility would require approximately $700 billion in XRP liquidity, with some price models suggesting XRP could reach between $12 and $24 under such high-demand scenarios, though Ripple has issued no formal price guidance.
This strategic evolution aligns with Ripple's broader regulatory progress, including receiving conditional approval for a national trust bank charter in the United States. As noted by crypto commentator Diana, Ripple spent the last eight years building the foundation for its SWIFT thesis, transitioning from an ambitious claim to a tangible position within the global payments infrastructure.
