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BitGo CEO Says XRP Bridge Strategy Dead as Ripple Bets on RLUSD
- BitGo CEO Mike Belshe criticised Ripple’s original XRP bridge model as outdated, arguing stablecoins are more efficient for cross-border payments, citing RLUSD as proof of Ripple’s pivot.
- Belshe envisions a future of stablecoin-driven payments without banks, suggesting that true scale will come from direct Fed access, not reliance on intermediary tokens like XRP.
- Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin now nears US$450M in supply, while XRP has dropped 1.8 % to US$2.18.
Ripple’s stablecoin rollout was not a good deal for XRP, according to BitGo CEO Mike Belshe.
Speaking at the Digital Banking 2025 summit, Belshe used his panel to dismantle Ripple’s long-standing pitch for XRP as a bridge currency, calling the model outdated and inefficient compared to stablecoins.
If you go back in time in digital assets about ten years, there’s this company Ripple. They had originally decided they were going to try to tackle cross-border payments by use of their XRP token.
BitGo CEO Mike Belshe. The problem, in his view, was the design: swapping dollars for XRP, then XRP for pesos. Two conversions, he pointed out, that were unnecessary because USD stablecoins are “just better”. The launch of RLUSD, Ripple’s own dollar-backed token, confirmed that shift. “Ripple just launched a stablecoin,” he said flatly, underscoring the irony.
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He pitched a near-future of seamless, global retail payments built on stablecoins: phones tapping at markets, interest dropping into wallets, no banks required. And for platforms hoping to scale, direct access to Fed rails was the real unlock, not more intermediaries.
RLUSD, which launched in December following the DFS approval, has already been added to Ripple’s payment suite and is approaching US$450M (AU$690M) in supply.
XRP Price Drops Despite Sudden Co-Founder Tweet
Meanwhile, XRP is currently trading at US$2.18 (AU$3.35), a decrease of 1.8% in 24 hours, erasing most of the gains it saw this week when a Ripple co-founder made a sudden and strange reemergence.
The token’s price has experienced a lot of volatility just like the rest of the market. However, there was a slight uptick of optimism shortly after Trump announced a ceasefire in the Middle East.
Related: OKX Eyes US Stock Market Debut Amid Global Regulatory Pressures
Author
José Oramas
José is a journalist and translator with a keen interest in blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
