[DigitalToday reporter Yoonseo Lee] Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse (브래드 갈링하우스) publicly agreed with an assessment that XRP was once criticised as a finance-sector coin, but that the cryptocurrency industry is now chasing the same strategy.

On June 11, local time, blockchain outlet The Crypto Basic said Garlinghouse replied "True" after related remarks by Flare co-founder Hugo Philion were shared on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The core of the discussion is that industry views of XRP have changed. In a recent interview, Philion said Ripple and XRP were criticised early on because they targeted banks and payment service providers, but many blockchain projects now pursue the same strategy. He said he had long been interested in XRP because of its focus on solving real-world payment problems, and he assessed that Ripple's payment strategy was largely the right direction even as regulatory burdens continued.

Philion pointed out that in the past XRP was tagged as a "banking-sector coin" because of its financial-institution-centred approach. He said the past criticism has become ironic because various projects are now working to build relationships with banks, payment companies and traditional finance. He viewed Ripple as having kept its original goals relatively consistently while the industry gradually moved toward the same opportunity.

Garlinghouse's short reply is interpreted as effectively accepting that assessment. XRP supporters view Ripple's strategy, focused on institutional adoption and cross-border payments, as having been ahead of the market.

Bill Morgan (빌 모건), an Australian lawyer known as an XRP supporter, also joined the debate. He pointed to a contradiction in the criticism of Ripple, saying Ripple is criticised for holding too much XRP while also being criticised again when it sells XRP. He argued that criticism has been repeated regardless of how Ripple manages its XRP reserves.

Philion also explained the background to why Flare made XRP a core target. He said XRP was a natural starting point for developing the Flare network, and that many investors and venture capitalists underestimated the opportunity.

Flare cited a lack of a meaningful decentralised finance, or DeFi, ecosystem for XRP as the reason it targeted XRP before bitcoin. Philion said that because XRP investors hold large amounts of capital, they needed uses that go beyond simple remittances or long-term holding. He judged that building a DeFi market centred on XRP was not easy, but that results are now emerging gradually.

Against this backdrop, the XRP ecosystem is continuing efforts to expand use cases beyond payments. Flare has built a structure that provides DeFi services to XRP holders and is focusing on increasing new use cases. Flare's FXRP has continued to hit milestones since it launched in 2025, and tokens in circulation are nearing 200 million.

Ultimately, the remarks show that assessments of XRP are expanding beyond a debate over a simple payments token to the cryptocurrency industry's broader strategy for approaching institutional finance. It said Ripple and XRP's institution-centred strategy remains controversial, but as efforts to expand touchpoints with traditional finance spread across the industry, the meaning of past criticism is also changing.

Flare founder @HugoPhilion just said it out loud XRP and Ripple were accused of being the banker coin… now everyone in the entire industry is desperate to be the banker coin. They mocked the vision. Now they're copying it $XRP $FLR @FlareNetworks pic.twitter.com/UHQCbR7lbA