Garlinghouse Says XRP Bridges Currency Pairs Without Dollar Conversion

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said Ripple uses XRP to bridge some currency pairs, a route that can avoid converting a payment into and out of U.S. dollars. He described Ripple’s payment rails as choices made to fit customer needs.

“XRP continues to be an asset we use as a bridge asset between different currency pairs,” Garlinghouse said in an interview published Wednesday, Oct. 28. He named no specific corridor or payment volume.

Garlinghouse also said about half of Ripple USD (RLUSD), Ripple’s U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, had been issued on the XRP Ledger at the time of the interview. He gave no token count or dollar value.

The XRP Ledger can route cross-currency payments through XRP when that reduces cost, provided sufficient liquidity is available along the payment path. The comments add detail to Garlinghouse’s earlier explanation that Ripple may use fiat or RLUSD when XRP does not fit a transaction.