The global payment system based on SWIFT is nearing collapse, with Ripple and its native token XRP emerging as potential successors, according to Sal Gilbertie, CEO of Teucrium.
The threat to the decades-old interbank messaging network is directly linked by the expert to the Californian fintech company’s plans to transform into a financial institution.
“What is Ripple going to do with its 40 billion XRP, considering the application for a banking license? One main theory is that they will simply keep these funds on the balance sheet, obtain a license, and enter the top twenty largest banks by capitalization,” Gilbertie believes.
He emphasized that blockchain addresses the critical issue of inefficiency in cross-border transfers. Currently, banks face the necessity of pre-funding accounts on both the sender’s and receiver’s sides.
“This will all go away. The distributed ledger will literally unlock vast amounts of frozen funds on institutions’ balance sheets,” added Gilbertie.
According to him, Ripple with its XRP Ledger (XRPL) network could become a leader in the transition of banking operations from SWIFT to blockchain.
In June, the CEO of the fintech company, Brad Garlinghouse, stated that within the next five years, XRP could capture up to 14% of the global volume of cross-border payments processed by the interbank messaging network. One of the token’s advantages, he noted, is providing liquidity.
SWIFT confirms verified data for transfer, but the movement of money is carried out by financial institutions. Ripple, on its platform, transmits both messages and the funds themselves — XRP acts as an intermediary currency.
Kaiko’s Low Security Rating for XRP Ledger
Kaiko specialists, in their second-quarter review, placed Ripple’s network last in security among the top 15 blockchains.
Introducing Kaiko’s Blockchain Ecosystem Ranking—a quarterly, data-driven assessment of 15 leading networks to guide tokenisation decisions. Transparent scores across governance, integration, liquidity, efficiency & security.
See the full results below pic.twitter.com/ThuRgIVHfk
— Kaiko (@KaikoData) August 13, 2025
XRPL scored only 41 out of 100. Stellar, initially launched as a clone of Ripple’s protocol, scored 45 points. For comparison, the leader, Ethereum, scored 83 points.
Kaiko ranks blockchains across five categories — governance, integration, liquidity, operational efficiency, and security. In the first category, XRP Ledger also ranked last.
In the overall ranking, the protocol took the 13th position. The network achieved its highest ranking, eighth place, in efficiency.
Kaiko’s senior analyst Adam Morgan McCarthy, in a comment for DL News, noted the main security issues for XRPL as a hack earlier this year, a small number of validators, and a low Nakamoto coefficient. The latter metric assesses how many entities must collude to compromise a PoS network.
In February, the protocol experienced a 64-minute outage. The blockchain resumed operation after a reboot. The network’s restart again raised user concerns about centralization. According to XRP Scan, XRP Ledger is supported by 198 validators. For example, Ethereum’s number exceeds 1 million.
Ripple’s CTO David Schwartz described XRPL as a fully decentralized blockchain. According to him, the company supports only one of the 35 trusted nodes. The key factor is not their number, but their distribution among independent operators, the programmer added.
To make significant changes to the protocol, a consensus of 80% of participants is required, which excludes unilateral actions by Ripple, Schwartz emphasized.
Back in April, Teucrium launched the first XRP-based exchange-traded fund in the United States.
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