Ripple CTO David Schwartz Reveals Ambitious Plans for XRP: “We Will Acquire Financial Giants, Will Have a Structure Similar to Ethereum…”

As the company behind XRP, Ripple continues its acquisitions and technology investments in line with its goal of building a bridge with traditional finance.

The company attracted attention earlier this year when it acquired prime broker Hidden Road for $1.25 billion, but Ripple’s plans don’t stop there.

Ripple’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) David Schwartz stated that the company is evaluating multiple acquisitions. “Our acquisition and merger team is working very hard. We have many potential acquisition processes at different stages,” said Schwartz, adding that the activity in this area is due to Wall Street still not fully realizing these opportunities.

Schwartz said that the slow pace of traditional financial giants in strategic acquisitions presents an opportunity for crypto companies. “We don’t have to compete with big banks to acquire strategically valuable companies like Hidden Road,” he said.

Ripple has previously acquired crypto custody firms such as Metaco and Standard Custody, and the company also plans to use its new stablecoin, RLUSD, as collateral for Hidden Road’s brokerage services.

Ripple is preparing to develop not only acquisitions but also the XRP Ledger (XRPL) infrastructure. XRPL, which is aimed to gain an Ethereum-like “programmability,” may soon be equipped with payment management systems that work similarly to smart contracts.

Schwartz said that while full programmability would not be possible in the near term, the goal is to “preserve security while providing flexibility.” For example, he said contracts could be put in place that allow a user to receive payment in their preferred digital asset instead of XRP.

In addition, Ripple is developing a lending protocol on the XRP Ledger. This system is planned to be launched if approved in the third quarter of 2025. Schwartz stated that this structure will bring together traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi), and said, “While the selection of borrowers and legal transactions are carried out off-chain, the tokenization and distribution of repayment rights will be done on-chain.”

Ripple made headlines in the industry in June with many announcements, including tokenized treasury bonds, a decentralized exchange (DEX) for institutional investors, and a partnership with Wormhole, which enables asset transfer between blockchains.