Ripple President Monica Long said stablecoins will form the foundation of global settlement, not sit apart from the existing financial system as an alternative rail. In a thread on X, she argued that Visa, Stripe and major institutions are already embedding stablecoins into payment flows, with business-to-business payments emerging as a key growth area for digital dollars and real-time liquidity management.
Stablecoins framed as the core settlement layer
Long said stablecoins are moving toward full integration with global payment systems over roughly the next five years. In that view, they become the default settlement layer for both incumbent financial institutions and fintech firms. Her comments align with a broader industry shift, where regulated stablecoins are being built to connect directly with bank infrastructure and card-network rails, narrowing the gap between crypto rails and traditional clearing systems.
She described the market as moving beyond a purely speculative phase and into what she called crypto’s “production era.” Long said 2026 will mark a period of institutionalization, with trusted infrastructure and real-world utility pushing banks, corporates and service providers from pilots into scaled deployment. She also predicted that about 50% of Fortune 500 companies will have some form of digital-asset exposure or a formal strategy around digital assets and treasury operations by 2026, spanning tokenized assets, on-chain Treasuries, stablecoins and programmable financial instruments.
ETFs, M&A and custody seen as institutional drivers
Long also pointed to access through capital markets as another force behind institutional adoption. She said crypto ETFs are expanding exposure quickly, while still accounting for only a small portion of the broader market. That leaves room for more growth, especially if spot products continue to move beyond bitcoin and ether and are used by traditional ETF investors as a bridge into on-chain collateral and tokenized yield products.
On market structure, she cited roughly $8.6 billion in crypto M&A volume in 2025 as a sign of a maturing sector. She said custody could become the next major consolidation theme. As digital-asset safekeeping becomes more commoditized, Long expects more vertical integration and broader use of multi-custodian strategies. By 2026, she expects about half of the world’s top 50 banks to formalize at least one digital-asset custody arrangement.
Community debate turns to XRP’s place in the model
Her comments triggered debate inside the Ripple community, where the main question is what role XRP holds in a settlement system anchored by stablecoins. Some users argued that XRP has long been discussed as a global settlement asset, and that emphasizing stablecoins now creates confusion around that thesis. A few replies said the messaging could weaken confidence among holders.
Others pushed back, saying stablecoins may be the asset class that brings business payment flows on-chain in the first place. Under that argument, the spread of fiat-backed tokens could still preserve demand for bridge assets in foreign-exchange conversion and interoperability. One example raised in the discussion was the potential need to convert stablecoins such as RLUSD into euros, where a neutral bridge layer could still matter.
2026 described as a turning point for institutional crypto
In Ripple’s published outlook, Long tied these ideas together by calling 2026 a defining year for institutional crypto adoption. She said stablecoins will power global settlement, tokenized assets will move onto institutional balance sheets, and custody will anchor trust for banks, asset managers and corporations. She also pointed to the growing overlap between blockchain and AI in automating back-office processes that still slow markets today.
The comments come as the wider industry is seeing parallel moves, including launches of new spot and leveraged crypto ETFs, bank pilots for tokenized deposits, and central bank digital currency experiments across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. For Ripple, Long’s message centers less on token price action and more on whether crypto infrastructure becomes embedded in legacy payment flows and institutional balance sheets.