Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has acknowledged that XRP is not necessarily the best asset for every payment use case, saying that stablecoins can solve some customer problems more effectively and that certain payment flows could move away from XRP entirely. His comments, made during a January 22 appearance at the Faena Rose conference, resurfaced on social media on September 24 and landed in a market still digesting what the admission means for the token’s core value proposition.
What Garlinghouse actually said
The Faena Rose program, titled “The Transformative Power of Crypto Assets,” featured Garlinghouse discussing cross-border payments, stablecoins, financial inclusion and digital financial infrastructure. The timing matters: the remarks are not a new Ripple policy announcement made this week, but they show how Garlinghouse described the roles of XRP and stablecoins earlier in 2026, while Ripple’s current product documents now describe a payments platform built to use several settlement assets.
During the discussion, Garlinghouse used cross-border transfers as an example of how the choice of asset depends on the payment itself. He said “XRP is the best bridge asset” could be the answer for one transaction, while another could work better through a stablecoin. His qualification was explicit: a stablecoin “is going to solve that problem better” in some cases, putting the customer’s payment requirement ahead of using one specific cryptocurrency. The statement was conditional and did not say stablecoins are universally better than XRP.
Garlinghouse separately rejected the label of an XRP maximalist, saying he is bullish on several cryptocurrencies for different reasons. He also criticized parts of the broader market, questioning the value created during the NFT boom and saying he did not understand much of the meme-coin craze. His framing made utility, not loyalty, the test for choosing technology.
Ripple Payments already works without depending on one asset
Ripple’s current payment infrastructure already supports the flexibility Garlinghouse described. The company’s official Ripple Payments page states that businesses can settle transactions using RLUSD, USDC, USDT or fiat, depending on their requirements. Ripple says its settlement layer is “decoupled from any single issuer’s token,” allowing new stablecoins to be added without rebuilding the payment infrastructure.
The platform handles collections, digital-asset conversion and payouts across more than 60 markets. Ripple states that the underlying network has processed more than 100 billion USD in payment volume and operates through a group holding more than 75 licenses globally.
Ripple USD has become another part of that infrastructure. Ripple describes RLUSD as a dollar-backed asset designed for payments, remittances, treasury flows and settlement, backed one-to-one by cash deposits, U.S. Treasuries and cash equivalents, redeemable for U.S. dollars. In certain jurisdictions the company has integrated the stablecoin directly into Ripple Payments. In June, Bitso’s Mexican peso-backed MXNB joined the XRP Ledger and Ripple’s payment infrastructure alongside RLUSD for U.S.-Mexico settlement flows.
The structural distinction between the two assets remains. XRP trades freely and has no issuer fixing its market price, while RLUSD is issued against reserves and designed to hold a value of one U.S. dollar. Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz has previously described the stablecoin as capable of acting as a bridge in some transactions while distinguishing its centralized controls from XRP’s neutral asset structure.
Not a retreat from XRP
Garlinghouse did not say Ripple was abandoning XRP or replacing it with RLUSD. Ripple’s documentation continues to identify XRP as a bridge asset for fast, low-cost cross-border transactions, and the company still uses XRP for On-Demand Liquidity, where the source currency is converted into XRP, transferred between markets and exchanged into the destination currency without maintaining pre-funded accounts.
The two assets are also being deployed side by side in newer products. Ripple’s XRP Ledger AI Starter Kit, launched in June, supports X402 payments using both XRP and RLUSD, letting developers choose either asset for machine-to-machine payments.
Political context that followed the remarks
Garlinghouse’s Faena Rose appearance took place months before the latest U.S. battle over the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act reached the Senate floor. On September 15, the Senate rejected cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633 by 49 votes to 50, falling short of the 60 votes required. The vote was procedural, not a final vote on passage.
Ripple responded the same day by calling the result a missed opportunity and pointing to the SEC and CFTC’s March 2026 interpretation identifying XRP as a digital commodity. In the January interview, Garlinghouse had praised Coinbase and CEO Brian Armstrong despite policy disagreements within the U.S. crypto industry, calling Coinbase one of the country’s few large and consequential crypto companies.
XRP trades near 1.54 USD after a weekly rally of roughly 16 percent, with the 1.60 USD resistance zone in focus. Bitcoin trades near 83,714 USD, Ethereum near 2,686.80 USD and Solana near 119.70 USD as of the 14:46 UTC snapshot on September 25, 2026.
Ripple shipping a multi asset settlement platform while the CEO hedges on XRP is the honest version of this story. The token survives as one rail among several, not the bridge.
one rail among several is generous. the ETF pipeline is the only bid left, payments died as a narrative the day ripple shipped its own stablecoin
resurfaced january comments treated as breaking news, classic xrp twitter. still, garlinghouse admitting stablecoins solve some flows better is more honest than the usual bridge talk
Ripple product docs already describe a multi asset settlement platform, so this tracks with what they shipped. Not sure why the market acts surprised.
surprised because bagholders still think every payment flow needs xrp. stablecoins ate the small transfer use case ages ago
Garlinghouse conceding this in January while the company built RLUSD anyway tells you which side Ripple actually bet on. The token is the fan club now.
Resurfaced January comments being treated like breaking news is peak crypto media. He said stablecoins fit some flows better, that is it.
@Goran true but it still stings for XRP holders. if the bridge asset thesis has holes, what is the leftover bull case, ODL volume?
ODL volume is the whole bull case left and even that gets reported less each quarter. A bridge asset with holes is a remittance token with marketing
ODL gets reported less each quarter because stablecoin rails keep absorbing the corridor volume. garlinghouse basically confirmed the bleeding in january and nobody clipped it until now
the ODL dashboards quietly losing corridors backs you up. stablecoin rails ate the sub 500 dollar remittance lanes first, the big corridors are next
or the leftover bull case is just the ETF pipeline now. the payments narrative already belongs to stablecoins, XRP trades like a regulatory play more every quarter
ODL fading makes the ETF the entire thesis. a regulatory wrapper on a payments token with shrinking payments, wild that this is the bull case now
honestly refreshing hearing a CEO admit his own token isnt the best tool for every job. most founders would die on that hill
refreshing yes, but the january clip resurfacing in september smells like someone stress testing the bagholder reaction before an announcement
refreshing yes, also remember ripple launched its own stablecoin. he is conceding flows to a product his company issues, thats not humility thats strategy
He said stablecoins fit some flows better back in January. The market reacting nine months later to a resurfaced clip is the actual story.
a january clip resurfacing in september moved the price more than the statement itself did. xrp trades on narrative archaeology at this point