The concept of a cryptocurrency like XRP competing immediately with international banks as soon as sounded unrealistic, however that line is beginning to blur. Ripple, the funds know-how firm behind XRP, has spent latest months pushing deeper into funds, liquidity, custody, and treasury infrastructure with acquisitions.
This has seen the function of XRP altering from a settlement token into one thing that more and more mirrors core banking features. The query is now not whether or not Ripple can coexist with international banks, however what adjustments if it begins competing head-on with them.
A Strategic Problem For Banks
Current acquisitions and commentary throughout the international monetary panorama have seen conversations about XRP’s function as a cross-border settlement token develop into what would possibly occur if Ripple begins competing with banks. Ripple has accomplished a number of high-profile acquisitions in latest months that stretch its attain into treasury companies, buying and selling infrastructure, stablecoin rails, and custody, and every of those offers speaks to a broader technique.
One of the vital consequential strikes was Ripple’s buy of Hidden Highway in April 2025. Hidden Highway is a worldwide prime dealer that clears trillions yearly and serves greater than 300 institutional purchasers. With Hidden Highway, which now operates as Ripple Prime, Ripple is now answerable for a multi-asset clearing, prime brokerage, and financing enterprise.
One other important acquisition was that of GTreasury, a treasury administration platform purchased for about $1 billion in October 2025. Ripple additionally agreed to accumulate Rail, a stablecoin funds platform, for round $200 million in August 2025. Integrating Rail’s stablecoin-focused know-how strengthens Ripple’s broader funds ecosystem and helps higher place its stablecoin, Ripple USD (RLUSD).
That acquisition sits alongside different strategic offers accomplished in latest months, such because the purchases of Palisade and, most lately, Sydney-based fintech agency Solvexia on January 6, 2026 by GTreasury.
Can Ripple Begin Competing With Main Banks?
Ripple has all the time been clear about its stance of competing with SWIFT because the main international messaging community for monetary establishments throughout the globe. Ripple’s CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, famous that the corporate plans to seize as much as 14% of SWIFT’s present cross-border quantity throughout the subsequent 5 years.
Ripple’s partnerships with over 300 banks and monetary establishments around the globe already present how its blockchain rails are getting used to hurry cross-border settlement and handle liquidity effectively. Many companions use RippleNet’s messaging for sooner transfers, and people who use XRP usually achieve this to faucet into liquidity corridors that eradicate the necessity for large prefunded accounts on each ends of a transaction.
Vincent Van Code, a well-liked crypto commentator on X, famous that Ripple is now encroaching on banks’ multi-trillion-dollar treasury, remittance, and custody income streams, areas which have traditionally been protected by legacy infrastructure. Ripple was held again for years by exterior constraints, however these boundaries are actually giving manner and all of the strategic items are starting to fall into place.
Most banks are engaged on outdated programs and can quickly be pressured to rebuild their infrastructure from the bottom up, a course of that would value between $3 billion and $4 billion per establishment simply to stay aggressive.
Featured picture created with Dall.E, chart from Tradingview.com
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