The Crypto Basic

The potential transformation of Ripple into one of the world’s largest banks via XRP is gaining attention.

Sal Gilbertie, CEO of Teucrium, outlined a scenario where the company’s massive XRP holdings alone could propel it into the ranks of the most capitalized financial institutions.

In an interview with Paul Barron, Gilbertie argued that traditional methods of valuing companies fail to capture how crypto-based balance sheets could reshape financial markets.

Key Points

• Sal Gilbertie says Ripple could rank among the top banks if its XRP holdings surge in value.

• With about 40B XRP, Ripple’s balance sheet could reach $120B at $3 and $240B if the token hits $6.

• Ripple’s push to launch a national bank gained traction after provisional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

• Gilbertie believes stablecoins like RLUSD could drive the next financial battle between banks and crypto firms.

XRP Holdings Could Reshape Ripple’s Banking Ambitions

Gilbertie pointed to Ripple’s roughly 40 billion XRP holdings. He suggested that if the company secures a banking license and holds those assets on its balance sheet, it could immediately achieve enormous capitalization.

For instance, if XRP were around $3, those holdings alone would represent roughly $120 billion in assets. That figure, he noted, would place Ripple among the top 20 most capitalized banks globally.

Gilbertie further explained that if XRP rises beyond that level, say, $6, the company’s valuation could climb even higher to $240 billion. Specifically, he sees such a potential outcome pushing Ripple into the top 10 banks by capitalization.

Gilbertie emphasized that crypto valuations often confuse observers who focus strictly on circulating capital. In reality, only a portion of tokens actively trade at any given time. Many investors often choose to hold assets in private wallets rather than on exchanges.

Ripple Moves Toward Banking Status

The discussion comes as Ripple continues pursuing its banking ambitions in the United States. In December 2025, the company received provisional approval from the U.S. OCC to charter Ripple National Trust Bank.

The move marked a major step toward integrating with the traditional financial system. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse described the approval as a key milestone for expanding the company’s U.S. operations and strengthening the regulatory standing of its dollar stablecoin RLUSD.

If the bank ultimately launches, Ripple would operate under federal oversight. At the same time, it will maintain state supervision for RLUSD through the NYDFS.

Stablecoins Could Become the Real Battleground

Gilbertie also highlighted the growing importance of stablecoins in the evolving financial landscape. He argued that both traditional banks and crypto-native companies will likely rely on their own stablecoins to compete in the next phase of financial innovation.

In his view, the stablecoin sector could trigger competition similar to the historical battles between money market funds, as institutions fight to control digital liquidity.

Gilbertie added that if Teucrium ever required a stablecoin for operational use, the firm would have no hesitation using RLUSD. As a client within Ripple’s ecosystem, he expects the company to gradually integrate blockchain-based settlements into its financial products.

Crypto’s Potential May Still Be Underestimated

Gilbertie ultimately suggested that the crypto market could grow far beyond current expectations. Unlike traditional markets, where valuation depends on fully tradable shares, digital assets often have a smaller actively traded supply, which can amplify price movements as demand grows.

Within that framework, he said Ripple’s potential banking model, combined with its XRP treasury and stablecoin infrastructure, could create a financial institution with capitalization levels rivaling the largest banks in the world.

The XRP Ledger developer community has pushed multiple upgrades, such as MPTs and Permissioned Domains, that make XRP ideal for RWA tokenization.

The XRP Ledger has been going through some important changes over the past two years, activating a series of upgrades that would make it the leading blockchain for institutional real-world asset tokenization. 

These upgrades, which include Multi-Purpose Tokens, Decentralized Identifiers, Credentials, Permissioned Domains, and Permissioned DEX, each address a specific problem that has kept large financial institutions from fully committing to blockchain-based asset issuance. 

Key Points

• While the RWA tokenization narrative has gained momentum, institutions looking to tokenize products on-chain often face compliance issues.
• The XRPL activated six major upgrades between February 2024 and February 2026, including Clawback, DIDs, Multi-Purpose Tokens, and Permissioned Domains, to improve institutional compliance.
• Each of these products addresses an issue that institutions face when tokenizing real-world assets, making the XRPL the ideal platform for tokenization.
• The XRPL accounted for $1.029 billion of the $3.4 billion in tokenized commodity growth across the entire blockchain industry in 2026, representing nearly one-third of the total.

The Compliance Barrier for Institutions

Jake Claver, CEO of Digital Ascension Group, recently discussed the ongoing campaign, arguing that the XRPL has now made itself the most practical platform for tokenization. 

In a recent commentary on X, he insisted that compliance has always been the single biggest obstacle keeping trillions of dollars in institutional capital off blockchain rails, and the XRPL’s recent upgrades have now cleared the obstacle.

Claver called attention to a pattern he has observed repeatedly, where major institutions that set out to tokenize real-world assets on Ethereum hit a compliance wall about six months into the process. 

Legal teams start raising questions like: What happens if a sanctioned entity ends up holding the tokens? How does the institution freeze assets during a fraud investigation? How does it recover funds from a compromised wallet? According to Claver, EVM-based chains have no answers to any of these questions.

To get around these gaps, banks typically bring in developers to build custom compliance layers. This process takes about six months and costs upwards of half a million dollars in audit fees alone. 

It also drives up the operational risk line on their regulatory capital allocation. On top of that, one exploit can bring the entire compliance framework down. Claver noted that most tokenization projects quietly go cold at this point.

How XRPL Addresses This

The XRPL took a steady, step-by-step approach to solving this problem. It started with the Clawback feature in February 2024, giving institutions the ability to freeze or retrieve issued tokens for legal or compliance reasons. 

In October 2024, the network activated Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs), allowing users to manage their own on-chain identities and setting the foundation for KYC compliance. 

Then, in September 2025, the XRPL activated Credentials, which let institutions manage authorization and compliance requirements directly on the ledger. A month later, in October 2025, the network activated the Multi-Purpose Token (MPT) standard, making it possible to issue real-world assets natively on the protocol.

Meanwhile, February 2026 brought two more additions: Permissioned Domains, which let institutions create and operate within private compliant environments, and the Permissioned DEX, which gives institutions the ability to set up compliant and private trading environments. 

Claver highlighted that MPTs bring deep freeze and clawback functionality into the protocol, so issuers can sanction a holder or recover funds without touching any smart contract. Identity verification also works the same way, with issuers limiting transactions holders that have passed through KYC through DIDs and Credentials.

XRP Shines in Speed and Cost

Claver also mentioned the XRPL’s performance advantages. Specifically, the network settles transactions in three to five seconds, with fees under a penny per transaction, paid in XRP and burned. He pointed out that, in contrast, Ethereum’s last congestion cycle saw gas fees climb to $50 per transaction.

He also called attention to the MPT metadata field that supports the Actus standard. For context, this feature lets an MPT carry machine-readable financial contract terms, including maturity dates and coupon rates, stored directly inside the token. Risk systems can read this data on their own, and this removes the need for manual reconciliation. 

Meanwhile, every MPT transaction burns XRP, and each new token issuance holds XRP as a reserve, meaning that if RWA tokenization reaches even a fraction of its projected multi-trillion-dollar scale, the demand for XRP ties directly to real settlement volume rather than speculation.

Real-World Assets Already Flowing Into the XRPL

Interestingly, XRP’s growing appeal to institutions has been evident this year. Notably, the XRPL alone accounts for nearly one-third of the growth of tokenized commodities on-chain in 2026, pulling in $1.029 billion out of the $3.4 billion that the entire blockchain industry recorded this year. 

The network now hosts around $2 billion in total real-world assets, which speaks directly to the real-world impact of its multi-year compliance upgrade campaign. Claver asked market participants to pay attention to which institutions start issuing on the XRPL over the next 12 months.

David Schwartz, Ripple’s CTO Emeritus (A CTO Emeritus is a former CTO who has attained an honorary position in the company due to his contributions), has provided evidence that Ripple burning all its escrowed XRP tokens would have no positive impact on the asset’s price. 

Ripple has sold over 21 billion XRP tokens since it began its escrow release schedule in 2017, triggering criticisms from detractors and some proponents. However, Ripple’s CTO Emeritus suggests one of the proposed solutions, involving an outright burn, may not have any positive economic impact.

Key Points

• After receiving 80 billion XRP tokens from the XRPL architects, Ripple locked up 55 billion tokens in escrow in 2017 and has sold 21.4 billion since then.
• These sales, which often involve about 200 million XRP from escrow monthly, have raised concerns, leading to criticisms.
• Some of these critics have argued that Ripple could burn all escrowed tokens to trigger a bump in XRP’s price.
• Amid these suggestions, Ripple’s former CTO and CTO Emeritus David Schwartz has come up to debunk claims that such burns could positively impact XRP’s price.
• He cited Stellar’s earlier burn of half its supply, exactly 55 billion tokens, in 2019 as evidence that such events would not trigger the expected price rally.

Ripple’s Consistent XRP Sales

Schwartz made his recent comments in a post on X amid concerns surrounding Ripple’s sales. For context, of the 55 billion the firm locked up in 2017, on-chain data from XRPScan confirms that there are about 33.6 billion tokens remaining. This indicates that the firm has sold off 21.4 billion XRP from escrow since 2017. 

Notably, Ripple scheduled the escrow to release 1 billion XRP each month, but the firm only leverages around 200 million tokens, locking back up the leftover. While Ripple took this approach to limit its ability to sell XRP in large quantities, minimizing a market impact, criticisms have emerged, with some arguing that Ripple “dumps on retail.”

Burning the XRP Escrow May Not Have an Impact on Price

Some individuals have suggested that Ripple burns the tokens instead, insisting that this could have a positive impact on XRP price rather than exerting selling pressure. One anonymous XRP community member recently suggested this, suggesting that such an event could push XRP beyond its current price of $1.39. 

The post tagged multiple Ripple executives, but only Schwartz responded with clarification. The Ripple CTO Emeritus shared a chart comparison involving XRP and Stellar (XLM) from January 2019 to March 2020. He then asked the XRP proponent to try identifying when Stellar burned half of its total supply on the chart.

XRP and XLM Price Comparison Since Nov 2019

For context, the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) announced burning 55 billion XLM tokens, amounting to half of XLM’s total supply, in November 2019. At the time, XLM changed hands at $0.065. In comparison, XRP traded for $0.295. 

Interestingly, despite the burn, XLM, which has always trailed XRP’s price action, continued to do so, seeing no significant gains. Specifically, a month after the burn, XLM dropped to $0.045, a 30% collapse. Meanwhile, XRP crashed by 34% to $0.19. Today, XLM trades for $0.164, up 152% from the price during the burn, while XRP sits at $1.39, recording a 371% rise within the same timeframe.

This indicates that while XLM burned half of its supply in November 2019, and Ripple has sold billions of XRP on the market since that time, XRP has effectively outperformed XLM within this period. Schwartz has leveraged this price performance to confirm why burning Ripple’s XRP tokens may just be a waste of money, serving no economic purpose.

Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz clarified that activities such as RLUSD transactions, RWA tokenization, and bridging on the XRP Ledger do not directly affect XRP’s price.

His remarks sparked a broader discussion about how developments like RWA tokenization and RLUSD activity may influence XRP’s market value. 

The debate over the drivers of XRP’s value has intensified as several initiatives emerge on the XRPL. Supporters often highlight developments such as RLUSD transaction, tokenized real-world assets, and cross-chain bridging as catalysts that could eventually push XRP higher.

However, Schwartz recently addressed a misconception surrounding these developments.

No benefit from their direct impact. But I think those things can sometimes have massive indirect impacts.

— David 'JoelKatz' Schwartz (@JoelKatz) March 13, 2026

Key Points

• Ripple CTO Emeritus Schwartz says token burning does not directly increase the price of a crypto asset.
• He stresses that RLUSD transactions, RWA tokenization, and XRPL bridging do not directly affect XRP’s market value.
• Despite agreeing on the lack of direct impact, he highlighted the potential for major indirect effects.
• Increased network activity could still propel XRP adoption and ultimately support the price over time. 

Token Burns Do Not Impact Price 

The discussion began after a community member suggested that instead of conducting share buybacks, Ripple should burn the XRP held in escrow to support holders.

In response, Schwartz explained that burning tokens does not automatically drive price appreciation. To illustrate his point, he shared a chart comparing XRP and XLM price movements between January 2019 and March 2020. 

During that period, both assets moved in similar directions, even though Stellar burned nearly half of its total supply. According to Schwartz, the chart showed no clear price effect from the burn.

RLUSD, RWA Tokenization, and XRP Bridging Have No Direct Impact on XRP Price 

His comments sparked further discussion within the community. Some observers, like independent blockchain specialist Spade, interpreted his view to mean that token burns do nothing for price performance. 

From this perspective, Spade argued that XRPL-based initiatives, including RLUSD activity, RWA projects, and XRP bridging, should also have no impact on XRP because their only direct effect is the burning of small transaction fees. 

Schwartz largely agreed with the technical premise, emphasizing that these projects do not have a direct impact on XRP’s price. For context, every transaction on XRPL consumes a tiny fee paid in XRP, which the protocol permanently destroys to prevent spam. 

Despite the burn effect from RLUSD, bridging, and RWA tokenization, Schwartz acknowledged that these initiatives do not create direct upward pressure on XRP’s price through the burn mechanism alone. 

They Offer Massive Indirect Impacts

Nonetheless, he stressed that the indirect effects could be substantial. As stablecoin payments, tokenized assets, and bridging services expand on the XRP Ledger, they could attract more users, including developers and institutions, to the network. 

Over time, this growth may increase ecosystem activity and liquidity, potentially strengthening XRP’s role within the broader financial infrastructure. In essence, Schwartz’s view suggests that ecosystem adoption, not fee burning, is the more meaningful factor that could influence XRP’s long-term value.