In a bold declaration that is echoing across financial and crypto sectors, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has reaffirmed the company’s mission to make XRP the backbone of global payments, not just as a competitor to the SWIFT network—but as its successor.
During a high-profile interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, Garlinghouse dismissed the idea of coexisting with legacy financial infrastructure.
Instead, he painted a future where RippleNet and XRP serve as the foundation for next-generation cross-border transactions, delivering real-time, low-cost, and frictionless financial transfers across jurisdictions.
“This isn’t just about offering an alternative,” Garlinghouse stated. “It’s about building something categorically better.”
XRP’s Ambition: Full-Scale Infrastructure Replacement
The remarks—shared widely across social media, including a viral clip posted by analyst John Squire—mark a pivotal shift in the narrative. Ripple is no longer positioning itself as a supplementary solution for financial institutions.
Instead, it’s laying the groundwork for a complete infrastructure overhaul, replacing outdated systems that have governed cross-border money movement since the 1970s.
Garlinghouse directly criticized SWIFT’s five-decade-old messaging framework, emphasizing how financial institutions worldwide still depend on slow, costly, and error-prone systems to settle trillions in daily transfers. Ripple’s value proposition, by contrast, is built around blockchain-backed finality, 24/7 global access, and transaction fees that are fractions of a cent.
The Trump Effect: Ripple’s Regulatory Comeback
Garlinghouse’s comments also touched on recent regulatory momentum that has shifted in Ripple’s favor. Since the return of Donald Trump to the White House, the U.S. regulatory climate has grown more accommodating toward crypto enterprises, particularly those offering real utility.
“In the six weeks following the 2024 election, we signed more U.S. deals than in the previous six months,” said Garlinghouse, highlighting what he described as a “regulatory thaw” that allowed Ripple to regain its footing on U.S. soil after years of SEC hostility.
This resurgence follows the Securities and Exchange Commission withdrawing its multi-year legal battle against Ripple earlier this year—a development that analysts say has significantly improved investor confidence in XRP.
SWIFT vs. Ripple: The Global Stakes
The competition between Ripple and SWIFT is more than symbolic. SWIFT currently connects over 11,000 institutions in more than 200 countries, operating as the backbone of the international banking system. But its model is increasingly viewed as outdated, vulnerable to delays, and burdened by excessive costs, particularly for developing economies.
Ripple, by contrast, is already processing transactions for major banks and payment providers in over 55 countries. Its On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) service uses XRP as a bridge currency to eliminate the need for pre-funded accounts, thereby freeing up capital for institutions and streamlining liquidity.
In emerging markets—particularly in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East—Ripple has found strong adoption, where traditional banking rails often fall short in terms of both cost efficiency and speed.
Timeline for Global Replacement
Despite his bullish stance, Garlinghouse acknowledged that overhauling the financial sector is a marathon, not a sprint. He estimates that full migration from SWIFT to blockchain-based alternatives like RippleNet could take up to two decades, depending on institutional adoption, regulatory harmonization, and technological upgrades within banks themselves.
Still, Ripple’s ambition to “bury SWIFT,” as the crypto community is now phrasing it, signals a foundational shift in how finance might operate in the next 10 to 20 years.
Conclusion
Brad Garlinghouse’s latest interview lays bare Ripple’s strategic blueprint: not to work alongside the traditional global payment infrastructure but to replace it entirely. With favorable winds from a more crypto-friendly U.S. administration and growing discontent with legacy systems, Ripple is positioning XRP as the foundational asset for a new era of cross-border finance.
The countdown has begun—not for cooperation, but for transformation. As regulatory clarity sharpens and global adoption widens, XRP may no longer be just a cryptocurrency. It could become the standard for global value transfer.
