Ripple Aims to Bridge Crypto and Wall Street, Says CEO Garlinghouse

Ripple Labs is seeking to expand beyond cross-border payments, unveiling a multibillion-dollar plan to deliver crypto-enabled services to Wall Street using XRP. 

CEO Brad Garlinghouse told CNBC the company is building on its blockchain stack to target Wall Street use cases and institutional workflows.

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Ripple’s Recent Purchases

Ripple has spent nearly US$4 billion (AU$6.19 billion) on multiple deals. In April, it bought institutional credit network Hidden Road for almost US$1.3 billion (AU$2.02 billion). In August, it agreed to acquire Rail, a stablecoin-powered global payments platform, for US$200 million (AU$310 million); that deal closed in October. 

A few days ago, Ripple announced the acquisition of Palisade, a crypto wallet provider that will allow the firm to create wallets at scale and provide high-speed transaction signing. 

Garlinghouse noted that those acquisitions were done with TradFi in mind, which the company wants to modernise with blockchain rails. The CEO did mention a moderation in deal activity after a rapid buildout, indicating Ripple will likely slow acquisitions in 2026 and focus on integrating what it has bought, shipping products, and growing institutional usage.

I want to see Ripple invest in [the] future and get ahead of where that market’s going. The assets we have been buying have been on the traditional finance side, so we can bring crypto-enabled solutions to that traditional financial world.

Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple Labs.

Moreover, the CEO also said the firm plans to lend the XRP Ledger (XRPL) to institutions seeking to develop cryptocurrency products and services, which could provide a boost in price for XRP, as it’s the native token of the XRPL.

The more we can build utility and really scale solutions that take advantage of XRP at the core, the more that will be uniquely good for the XRP ecosystem.

Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple Labs.

XRP is currently trading at US$2.39 (AU$3.66), a 10% increase in the last seven days, but a 6% drop daily. The token surged by double digits shortly after it was announced that the DTCC listed five spot XRP ETFs to its public “active and pre-launch” roster.

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