Points of Focus

• David Schwartz outlines advantages XRP holds over stablecoins for cross-border payments.
• Corridor coverage, issuer control, and economic upside, key reasons major firms may still prefer XRP in certain flows.
• Ripple’s rapid RLUSD stablecoin growth creates irony as the former CTO makes the case for XRP’s unique utility.

David Schwartz, former Chief Technology Officer at Ripple, has directly addressed growing skepticism about XRP’s adoption in cross-border payments.

In a recent discussion on X, Schwartz explained why major financial institutions might prefer XRP over stablecoins like USDT and USDC for certain transactions. His core argument is simple: the decision comes down to utility, not loyalty.

Genuine question for hardcore $XRP holders:

Why would global banks choose to use XRP and in turn, potentially boost its price through the roof, when Ripple holds 34B tokens?

If it goes to the wild prices everyone yaps about, Ripple would be the most valuable financial…

— MASON VERSLUIS (@MasonVersluis) April 1, 2026

Schwartz pushed back against critics who claim banks won’t use XRP because it also benefits Ripple, which holds billions of the token. He argued that companies rarely reject a product that makes strong commercial sense just because a third party also profits from its success.

Three arguments, one direction

David Schwartz laid out three clear scenarios where he believes XRP has a distinct edge over stablecoins like USDT and USDC.

Corridor coverage

Schwartz says since stablecoins are pegged to a single currency, it creates problems for multi-country payments. The right stablecoin may not exist or may lack liquidity in certain corridors. XRP avoids this issue entirely by acting as a neutral bridge asset.

Issuer control

Stablecoins can be frozen or seized by the issuing company under court orders or regulatory pressure. XRP has no central issuer that can unilaterally freeze tokens, making it more attractive for users who want to avoid counterparty risk.

There are some cases where volatility is a huge problem and so a stablecoin is a better choice than a cryptocurrency. Similarly there are some cases where a regulated asset with a trusted counterparty is a benefit.

But cryptocurrencies have three big advantages over stablecoins.…

— David 'JoelKatz' Schwartz (@JoelKatz) April 2, 2026

Economic upside

When price stability is not essential, some users prefer an asset with potential upside. Schwartz noted that in long-term escrow arrangements or certain treasury use cases, holding XRP, or BTC, may be preferable to holding dollars if participants want to preserve growth potential alongside utility.

A growing stablecoin rival at home

The debate comes at an interesting time.

Ripple’s own stablecoin, RLUSD, has quickly grown to a $1.56 billion market cap. The company is actively integrating it into real-world use cases, including a new B2B payments partnership with Convera and expanded distribution through SBI in Japan.

Ripple has also launched Digital Asset Accounts and Unified Treasury, allowing finance teams to manage fiat, XRP, RLUSD, and other digital assets all on one platform. Ripple Treasury processed an impressive $13 trillion in payments last year. In March 2026, Kroll assigned Ripple Prime an investment-grade BBB issuer rating.

Introducing the first native onchain capabilities in an enterprise treasury management system – today @Ripple Treasury is adding Digital Asset Accounts and Unified Treasury to give CFOs the ability to view, hold, receive and manage fiat and digital liquidity in their existing…

— Ripple (@Ripple) April 1, 2026

This creates a quiet irony. While Ripple is aggressively building infrastructure to make stablecoins more powerful and widely used, its former CTO continues to argue that XRP still holds unique advantages that stablecoins cannot match.

Cases for and against

Supporters of Schwartz’s argument say his corridor and issuer-control points reflect real friction in institutional cross-border flows, especially in emerging market corridors where dollar-pegged stablecoins are thin.

The doubt from traditional finance goes far beyond price volatility. SWIFT’s ex-Chief Innovation Officer Tom Zschach has been blunt. In September 2025, he argued on LinkedIn that banks will not be comfortable outsourcing settlement finality to a token like XRP. It is not a deposit, not regulated money, and does not sit on their balance sheets. 

His more pointed concern is economic. If tokenized bank deposits and regulated stablecoins become widely used, banks will have little incentive to pay a toll to an external asset like XRP. They would rather settle using instruments they already issue and fully control. 

That view is gaining traction in practice. SWIFT has now moved its shared blockchain ledger to a minimum viable product. The system is built on tokenized commercial bank deposits, involves more than 50 member banks, and features no role for XRP.