Ripple's Battle with the SEC Is Over: Is It Time to Take on SWIFT?

SWIFT may have the advantage of ubiquity and clear institutional adoption, but Ripple offers clear technological advantages, including faster transaction and settlement speeds, and lower costs. In 2018, a few years before Ripple’s protracted legal battle with the SEC began, Garlinghouse told Bloomberg: “What we’re doing and executing on every day is actually replacing SWIFT.” At the time, banks and remittance companies had already signed up to use the XRP Ledger. So, with institutional partners signing up and the price of XRP soaring over the past year, what’s standing between Ripple’s ledger and SWIFT? So, why hasn’t Ripple replaced SWIFT? Cathy Craddock, Ripple's Managing Director for the UK and Europe, told Cointelegraph: "We don't see blockchain as an opportunity to replace legacy systems, but rather as a way to enhance and modernize existing financial infrastructure, creating opportunities for greater efficiency and interoperability." However, scaling to the level of traditional providers requires addressing two key hurdles: usability and regulation. On the regulatory front, Ripple only recently emerged from a high-profile lawsuit. In December 2020, the SEC, chaired by Jay Clayton, sued Ripple Labs, alleging it failed to register its XRP token as a security under US law. The SEC alleged that the company and its executives raised funds through unregistered securities sales. A costly, years-long court battle ensued. In 2023, Judge Annalisa Torres ruled that programmatic sales of XRP did not require securities registration, but sales to institutional investors did. The court didn’t impose a final $125 million civil penalty on Ripple until August 2024. By October, Ripple and the SEC had filed separate appeals, but ultimately agreed to dismiss the case in early August 2025 following the election of U.S. President Donald Trump and the SEC's shift in its cryptocurrency priorities. While the lawsuit may have hindered XRP's adoption in the United States, it signed cooperation agreements with authorities in numerous other jurisdictions around the world during the litigation. Furthermore, the lawsuit brought unique legal clarity to XRP—something few cryptocurrencies can boast. However, legal clarity may not be enough for Ripple to replace the world's largest payments network, as banks themselves must be persuaded to change how they operate. Vincent Van Code, a software engineer and blockchain advocate who goes by the pseudonym SWIFT, said platforms using SWIFT “process billions of dollars every day, but they are rigid, expensive and deeply siloed. Replacing a core system could take five to seven years and hundreds of millions of dollars, which is a huge operational risk.” He said banks don’t change their systems because “every bank already ‘speaks the SWIFT language’, making it the safest and cheapest option. Even initiatives like SWIFT GPI are only being implemented now that there are nearly 50 banks already.” Van Code concluded that Ripple must deal with fragile legacy core systems and “uneven” global regulation, while also appeasing risk-averse banks – all while battling the perception of liquidity in its underlying token. “SWIFT’s ubiquity is its moat, and breaking that network effect will take time.” Cradock said that “institutions need tools that feel familiar” and that new regulations, particularly the GENIUS Act, are “a step toward providing the clear rules that give institutions the confidence to adopt blockchain in a compliant way.” “Stablecoins like Ripple USD are helping to bridge this gap – they’re simple to understand, pegged 1:1 to the US dollar, and behave like digital cash. It’s this familiarity that we’re seeing a growing comfort level among traditional financial players with crypto and blockchain technology.”

Private payments gain ground

It’s unclear whether Ripple can counter the future SWIFT, overcoming entrenched banking practices and unenthusiastic regulators. However, cryptocurrencies are on the rise in the United States, and lawmakers are paving the way for digital assets to play a key role in the traditional financial system. Congress has clearly expressed its preference for the widespread use of private stablecoins over digital dollars or central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Congress did not explicitly ban CBDCs, but it enacted a law stipulating that only the legislature can create a CBDC, excluding the Federal Reserve or commercial entities. At the same time, it passed the GENIUS Act, which provides clear rules for stablecoin issuers. In March, after the SEC dropped its investigation into Ripple, Garlinghouse told Fox News that "the market opportunity is enormous in the United States," adding that there is a chance to modernize the payment system away from SWIFT.