Garlinghouse Says Tokenization Is Moving Beyond Theory

• Garlinghouse says tokenized assets on XRPL surged sharply, showing growing institutional momentum.
• Stablecoins emerged as tokenization’s first real success, with transaction volumes rising rapidly.
• Garlinghouse says governments will keep control of money, pushing crypto to work alongside finance.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says tokenization is no longer just a theory or a tech experiment, arguing that real momentum is finally building across global markets.

Tokenized assets on Ripple’s XRP Ledger jumped more than 2,200% last year, a sign that institutions are starting to move beyond pilot projects and into real use.

He pointed to stablecoins as the clearest early success. “The first poster child of tokenization was really stablecoins,” Garlinghouse said, saying that transaction volumes surged sharply. By industry estimates, stablecoin transactions rose from about $19 trillion in 2024 to $33 trillion in 2025, roughly 75% growth in a single year.

Governments Aren’t Giving Up Control

Garlinghouse also dismissed the idea that crypto would replace national currencies, saying governments are unlikely to surrender control over money.

“The sovereignty of fiat currencies is, for many countries, sacrosanct,” he said, recalling a remark from a former central banker who once warned that governments would “roll tanks into the streets” before giving up control of monetary supply.

Instead of replacing existing systems, Garlinghouse said Ripple is focused on connecting them, building what he described as bridges between traditional finance and blockchain-based networks by working directly with banks and financial institutions.

Momentum Shifts as US Policy Changes

Garlinghouse said momentum has changed as political attitudes toward crypto in the United States have shifted.

“For a long time, the US was pretty openly hostile to parts of crypto and blockchain,” he said. That stance, he added, has changed, beginning at the White House and extending into Congress, giving the industry more confidence to build domestically.

Still, Garlinghouse warned that not every asset should be tokenized just for the sake of it.

“We shouldn’t tokenize everything just to tokenize something,” he said. “There has to be a positive outcome, efficiency, transparency, otherwise it’s just a science experiment.”

Diamonds Put Theory to the Test

That distinction matters as tokenization begins to move into physical commodities.

In a recent example, more than $280 million worth of polished diamonds were recorded on a blockchain using Ripple-developed technology. The project is one of the largest known attempts to digitally represent diamonds. 

As Garlinghouse put it, the real test for tokenization is no longer whether it works in theory, but whether it delivers results in the real economy.

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