In a striking reversal of industry sentiment, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has declared that XRP’s long-maligned enterprise focus is now being vindicated. Responding on social media to comments by Flare co-founder Hugo Philion, Garlinghouse agreed that the broader cryptocurrency space is actively copying the very institutional playbook it once derided.
Philion, speaking on the AllInCrypto Podcast, pointed to the hypocrisy of competing networks that are now racing to become the “banker coin” — a term once used to criticize XRP. “It’s pathetic, really,” he said, noting that Ripple’s solution for global payments has always been “broadly in the right direction.”
As regulatory clarity improves and institutional capital drives growth in 2026, the XRP Ledger (XRPL) is expanding its role in real-world asset (RWA) issuances. To support this influx, Flare is introducing Flare 2.0, which includes Flare Confidential Compute — a privacy layer that uses Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) to enable fully private, scalable, and compliant decentralized exchanges (DEXs) tailored for RWAs on the XRPL.
This technological integration underscores the network’s growing institutional appeal and marks a significant milestone in Ripple’s long-standing vision.
