Ripple Labs has turn out to be one in all the world’s largest cryptocurrency corporations, but executives aren’t stopping there, CEO Brad Garlinghouse told CNBC. Over the past 12 months, the firm has ramped up efforts to bridge the Web3 world and an industry that has long been viewed as its foil — traditional finance.
In an interview with CNBC’s “Crypto World” on the Ripple Swell 2025 conference in Recent York, Garlinghouse said his firm goals to supply a big selection of traditional financial services built on blockchain infrastructure, capitalizing on growing institutional adoption of digital assets.
A blockchain is a decentralized digital ledger that logs transactions across a network of computers.
“I would like to see Ripple spend money on [the] future and get ahead of where that market’s going,” Garlinghouse said Tuesday. “The assets we’ve got been buying have been on the normal finance side, so we are able to bring crypto-enabled solutions to that traditional financial world.”
Aiming at finance-focused firms
Ripple has been on an almost $4 billion acquisition spree in hopes of constructing a financial services powerhouse, in 2025 alone buying prime brokerage Hidden Road for nearly $1.3 billion in April and software firm GTreasury for greater than $1 billion this fall. Last week, it launched an offering through its brokerage that may provide U.S.-based institutions access to over-the-counter spot market trading across several tokens, raised $500 million in fresh funding and lifted its market value to $40 billion.
Ripple’s bid to deepen its push into traditional finance comes as institutional demand for digital assets grows the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodities Futures Trading Commission dialing back digital assets regulations this 12 months under President Donald Trump, a self-styled crypto champion.
Bank of America and Citigroup have begun actively exploring stablecoins, with Citi recently unveiling plans to launch a crypto custody service for clients in 2026. JPMorgan in June said it plans to introduce a stablecoin-like “deposit token” on Coinbase’s public blockchain Base. Beyond dollar-pegged tokens, institutional investors have poured billions of dollars into spot Bitcoin ETFs since their U.S. debut in January 2024.
“ The US used to lean out on crypto, and now we’re leaning in, and I believe people underestimate how big a shift that’s,” and the likely impact on all the crypto market, Garlinghouse said.
Institutional integration
On top of constructing out its own services, Ripple also goals to sign deals to lend its XRP Ledger technology to larger institutions’ crypto pushes, in keeping with Garlinghouse.
Such partnerships could prove a boon to XRP, the native token of the XRP Ledger, a decentralized blockchain aimed to service fast and low-cost transactions. Â
“ The more we are able to construct utility and really scale solutions that make the most of XRP on the core, the more that will probably be uniquely good for the XRP ecosystem,” Garlinghouse said.
XRP has traded sideways for much of 2025, at the same time as ether and bitcoin sailed to record highs of about $3,900 and $126,000, respectively.
But while high-profile partnerships might push up the value of XRP, dealmaking with traditional institutions is more likely to remain difficult attributable to stalled efforts to create guardrails for cryptocurrency corporations and holders within the U.S., Garlinghouse said.
The crypto industry lobby was once hopeful that lawmakers would pass a sweeping digital assets market structure bill called the Clarity Act before the top of the 12 months.
But with the U.S. government shutdown set to enter its sixth week, efforts to determine legislative guidelines for the industry have come to a halt.
“Until we’ve got that [legal go-ahead], it’s gonna be hard,” Garlinghouse said. “Banks are searching for and wish that clarity for them to actually lean in.”
