Brad Garlinghouse has endorsed claims that Wall Street firms are increasingly pursuing the same institutional finance strategy that XRP was once criticized for supporting. Summary Brad Garlinghouse backed Hugo Philion’s claim that Wall Street and crypto firms are increasingly adopting XRP’s institutional finance vision. Philion said Ripple’s payments strategy has remained consistent despite years of regulatory challenges and industry criticism. The comments come as the XRP Ledger prepares its v3.2.0 upgrade and Ripple supports Mastercard’s new AI payments network. According to comments shared on X, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse responded with a one-word endorsement after Flare co-founder Hugo Philion argued that many parts of the crypto industry are now embracing the bank-focused approach that XRP and Ripple promoted from the beginning. The exchange began after an X user highlighted remarks Philion made during a recent interview discussing Ripple’s long-standing role in digital payments. The user wrote that parts of the crypto sector had mocked XRP’s institutional vision in the past but were now attempting to replicate it. Garlinghouse replied simply, “True.” Philion’s comments centered on how perceptions of Ripple have changed over time. During the interview, he said XRP and Ripple were once criticized for working closely with banks and financial institutions. According to Philion, many projects across the crypto market are now seeking similar relationships with traditional finance firms. Ripple’s institutional strategy gains fresh attention Speaking in the interview, Philion said he had always been interested in XRP and viewed Ripple’s payments strategy as being largely on the right track. He argued that regulatory challenges have created more obstacles for the company than issues related to its business model. While discussing the criticism Ripple faced in its early years, Philion said XRP was often labeled a “banker coin.” He contrasted that view with the current market environment, where many crypto companies are actively pursuing partnerships with banks, payment providers, and financial institutions. Philion also stated that Ripple has remained consistent with its original objective of improving payments infrastructure. According to his comments, the company has continued building around that use case while maintaining one of the most active communities in the digital asset industry. Recent developments involving Ripple have added context to the discussion. As previously reported by crypto.news, Mastercard recently launched an AI-powered payments network called Agent Pay for Machines with support from more than 30 companies, including Ripple, Coinbase, the Solana Foundation, Stripe, Adyen, Cloudflare, and OKX. According to Mastercard, the platform is designed to allow autonomous software agents to carry out transactions, settlements, and machine-to-machine payments. Ripple said fast settlement infrastructure remains an important component for such systems, reinforcing the company’s long-standing focus on payment efficiency. XRP Ledger prepares next software release Alongside the renewed debate over Ripple’s role in financial infrastructure, development work on the XRP Ledger continues ahead of a scheduled software update. According to the XRP Ledger Foundation, version 3.2.0 is expected to be released on June 15 following last month’s rollout of version 3.1.3. The previous release included updates affecting NFTs, Multi-Purpose Tokens, Vaults, the Lending Protocol, and Permissioned Domains. One of the most notable changes in the upcoming release is a rebranding of the network’s core server software. According to the XRP Ledger Foundation, the software currently known as “rippled” will be renamed “xrpld.” The foundation said the change is intended to better represent the expanding open-source ecosystem surrounding the XRP Ledger.
