Ripple, Garlinghouse, and XRP are having a great day

Ripple is having a big day, with a slew of news helping to boost its native token, XRP, as its CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, testifies today before the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, advocating for crypto legislation.

XRP, the fourth-largest crypto by market cap, is up 3.6% in the past 24 hours and over 448% in the past year.

Meanwhile, Ripple’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, RLUSD, launched last December, is also having a great day, crossing $500 million in market cap after growing 31% over the past month, DefiLlama data shows.

Mike Cahill, cofounder and CEO of Douro Labs, told Sherwood News that Ripple’s momentum this week signals something deeper than just price action: it shows how regulatory engagement and product execution can work in tandem.

“Garlinghouse’s Senate appearance helps to underscore Ripple’s growing institutional credibility, while RLUSD crossing the $500M mark shows there’s real appetite for stablecoin alternatives in this next phase of crypto,” Cahill added. “As tokenized finance expands, we’ll see more protocols bridging regulated infrastructure with on-chain utility, and Ripple’s playbook is helping define that path.”

Ripple also announced today that it selected the 240-year-old Bank of New York Mellon to custody RLUSD reserves, underscoring the increasing proximity between traditional finance and crypto.

This announcement comes at a time when stablecoins, with a $255.4 billion market cap, are in the spotlight and experiencing what many call a “stablecoin summer,” with everyone from Amazon to Walmart exploring use cases.

Efforts to pass legislation to provide regulatory frameworks are accelerating as well.

The House declared the week of July 14 “Crypto Week,” saying lawmakers will “consider” the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, which the Senate passed last month, as well as the CLARITY Act.

Today, in his prepared remarks, Garlinghouse also took a moment to acknowledge both a recent win and the major shift from the “regulation by enforcement” approach the former administration (and former SEC Chair Gary Gensler) took with the crypto industry, saying that Ripple “was the tip of the spear of this regulation-by-enforcement campaign and was subject to an enforcement action in 2020.”

“Fortunately, after four years of a hard-fought legal battle, we prevailed. The court ruled in our favor on everything that mattered — including finding that the token XRP is not, in and of itself, a security. Our victory cleared the path for other market participants to fight back,” he said.

He also urged lawmakers to prioritize the passage of market structure legislation for digital assets, adding that “over 55 million Americans participate in the crypto economy, which equates to a $3.4 trillion market cap today.”

Doug Colkitt, a founding contributor at Fogo, said that in an often fragmented sector, Ripple is showing what it looks like to align with institutions while still scaling real on-chain products. 

“The real test will be how protocols like Ripple compete in the new stablecoin economy, where speed, liquidity, and composability are everything,” Colkitt said. 

Earlier this month, Ripple applied for a national bank charter from the OCC.

“If approved, we would have both state (via NYDFS) and federal oversight, a new (and unique!) benchmark for trust in the stablecoin market,” Garlinghouse posted on X.

Ripple also applied for a Fed Master account, which would allow the company to hold RLUSD reserves with the Fed.