Ripple CEO Calls Bond Settlement Slow, Eyes XRP Ledger Shift
Tech Ripple CEO Calls Bond Settlement Slow, Eyes XRP Ledger Shift Ripple CEO Calls Out Slow Bond Markets as XRP Ledger Pushes Toward Real-Time On-Chain Settlement Speaking on the Crypto in America show, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse called out bond settlement as one of traditional finances most outdated inefficiencies, it as slow, arcane, and broken. He suggested the shift to on-chain systems is inevitable, with the already well positioned to support that transition. To understand his point, it helps to look at how bond settlement works today. Even in modern finance, transferring a bond from seller to buyer is rarely instant, it typically takes one to two days, sometimes longer. The process moves through multiple intermediaries such as brokers, custodians, clearinghouses, and settlement agents, each adding layers of time, cost, and potential for error. Reconciliations are often still manual, and the system ultimately relies on legacy infrastructure that was never built for todays pace of capital movement. Whats next? Well, blockchain infrastructure shifts this entirely. On the XRP Ledger, settlement happens in seconds once a transaction is validated, cutting out the usual chain of institutional confirmations. Instead of multiple parties updating records one after another, the ledger acts as the single source of truth; once consensus is reached,