Ripple’s Garlinghouse Dives Into Crypto ETFs: ’The Gateway Drug for Institutional Adoption’
Crypto’s Wall Street reckoning is here—and Ripple’s CEO isn’t holding back. Brad Garlinghouse just unpacked why ETFs matter more than your average finance bro realizes.
## From Niche to Mainstream in One ETF
Forget the ’wild west’ narrative. Garlinghouse argues regulated crypto ETFs finally give pension funds and boomer investors a compliant FOMO button. No more self-custody nightmares or shady offshore exchanges.
## The Liquidity Lifeline
Daily traded volumes don’t lie. Bitcoin ETFs already soak up billions—imagine XRP or ETH funds unlocking that firehose. ’This isn’t speculation anymore,’ says Garlinghouse. ’It’s infrastructure.’
## A Cynical Footnote
Of course, Wall Street only loves innovation when it can slap a 2% management fee on it. But hey—progress is progress, even when packaged by the same suits who called crypto a scam three years ago.
Institutional Access
Before the January 2024 launch of spot BTC ETFs on Wall Street, institutional market participants had to rely on more unusual (for them) access points to get bitcoin exposure, such as cryptocurrency exchanges and self-custody. However, the introduction of these financial vehicles changed the game entirely for them, which is evident from the mindblowing demand for most spot Bitcoin ETFs, especially BlackRock’s IBIT.
“So, this was really the first time you had institutions be able to go on Wall Street and trade directly in crypto,” Garlinghouse explained.
Capital that previously couldn’t enter the cryptocurrency space, such as endowment, pension funds, or even mutual funds, now has a dozen options to do so.
Institutionalizing the Industry
The second reason complements the first, Garlinghouse noted, as it simply changes the focus in the cryptocurrency industry, at least for the bigger projects, mostly on larger investors and institutions.
As mentioned above, BlackRock’s IBIT broke multiple records in terms of net inflows for its year and a half in existence.
“It should be no surprise that a Bitcoin ETF was the fastest ETF ever to get to $1 billion in assets.”
It has become a behemoth as its total holdings are double that of the rest of the Bitcoin ETFs combined. As of Friday’s close, BlackRock’s BTC ETF had almost $48 billion in AUM as it continues to dominate the net inflows. IBIT has not seen a single day in the red since the market-wide crashes in early April. Consequently, Garlinghouse predicted that it will eventually close in on the Gold ETFs as well.
In terms of a spot Ripple ETF, the news from the SEC is somewhat expected as the agency continues to delay making a decision on a couple of filings. Polymarket shows that the chances of an XRP ETF hitting the US markets this year stand at well over 80%, but the percentage drops to 21% when the deadline is set at July 31.
Nevertheless, Ripple saw some success on the ETF front as a few futures-based funds went live for trading in the past month or so.
