A former high-ranking executive at SWIFT has cast doubt on the real-world utility of XRP following Ripple’s recent institutional pilot involving tokenized U.S. Treasury assets. Tom Zschach, the former chief innovation officer at the global payments network, argued that the transaction may not validate XRP’s long-touted role as a settlement asset.
Ripple partnered with Ondo Finance, Mastercard, and J.P. Morgan’s Kinexys platform to complete a near-real-time redemption of a tokenized U.S. Treasury fund on the XRP Ledger (XRPL). Ripple hailed the pilot as a “meaningful step toward 24/7 global financial markets.” However, Zschach swiftly highlighted a critical distinction: the actual fiat settlement remained centralized, with J.P. Morgan’s Kinexys unit delivering U.S. dollars directly to Ripple’s bank account in Singapore.
“Is XRP used as a settlement asset or just for gas on the ledger?” Zschach questioned publicly. This distinction between using a blockchain network and its native cryptocurrency has long been a point of contention, and the former SWIFT innovator’s remarks reignited the debate. He suggested that institutional participation on the XRP Ledger does not automatically translate to demand for the XRP token itself.
Zschach spent six years steering innovation at SWIFT, Ripple’s primary competitor in cross-border payments, before resigning in March. He has previously likened XRP to a “fax machine” and argued that surviving lawsuits, like the SEC case, does not equate to institutional adoption. “Institutions don’t want to live on a competitor’s rails,” he stated, championing SWIFT’s neutral consortium model.
