- Brad Garlinghouse reiterates that XRP “always comes first” for Ripple.
- RippleX has presented an “Institutional DeFi on XRPL” roadmap in which XRP plays a central role.
Contrary to the many speculations and rumors, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse set Ripple’s price at X on Monday affirmed: “The XRP community has always been and will always be Ripple’s number one priority.” The Ripple CEO was responding to ongoing debates about whether Ripple will continue to consistently position XRP as a bridge asset at the center of its strategy.
Garlinghouse wrote that it was “nice to see that the message is (finally, even) clearer.” The post referenced a post in which a community account emphasized that Ripple was sticking to its word about using XRP as a bridge asset: “The vision has not changed. The direction remains aligned.”
Why XRP will be of central importance for Ripple in 2026
The reason for the post was a recent Ripple blog post from February 5, 2026. In it, Ripple’s development arm describes the XRP Ledger’s “Institutional DeFi” roadmap as a development towards “everyday institutional use – with XRP at the center of settlement, FX, collateral and on-chain credit”. The focus for 2026 is on “lending, privacy and permissioned on-chain markets”.
Im Blog Ripple explains that the XRP Ledger should develop into an “end-to-end operating system” for real-world finance: compliance tooling, real-time settlement and “asset layer programmability” are already available on the mainnet. In parallel, XRP, as the ledger’s native asset, will see “a sharp increase in direct and indirect utility.”
Ripple specifically gives three arguments why XRP will play a central role both directly and indirectly: On the one hand, XRP is promoted directly via features that boost transaction volume and asset issuance on the ledger. On the other hand, XRP benefits indirectly via protocol mechanics such as reserve requirements, fees (including XRP burn), and acting as a bridge currency in FX and lending flows.
In the area of payments and FX, Ripple refers to “permissioned domains”, which are intended to make regulated environments accessible via “credentials” (such as KYC/AML attributes), as well as a “permissioned DEX”, which allows secondary markets for FX and stablecoins in regulated contexts. Stablecoins like RLUSD would be settled on XRPL. XRP is used in permissioned DEX environments as an auto-bridge asset to settle trades between stablecoins and other tokens “immediately and at low fees”; Every transaction also burns XRP via fee mechanics.
For collateral and liquidity, Ripple describes “token escrow” (now also for IOUs and MPTs) and “batch transactions” for atomic delivery-versus-payment workflows, for example in repo markets or cross-asset swaps. Ripple is positioning the Multi-Purpose Token (MPT) particularly centrally as a future tokenization standard that is intended to reflect complex instruments such as money market funds, bonds or funds, including metadata, restrictions and structure. This increases network usage as well as asset reserves and fees, “all denominated in XRP”.
Ripple is also announcing native on-ledger credit for 2026: With XRPL v3.1.0, “Single Asset Vaults” and the “XLS-66 Lending Protocol” will enable fixed terms, fixed interest rates and automated repayments directly at the ledger level. Risk models and underwriting remain off-chain; Additionally, Ripple mentions “First-Loss Capital” as an institutional protection mechanism.
No Comments