Swift opens a deep gap: the strategy Ripple could never expand

During the Sibos 2025 conference held in Frankfurt, the global financial infrastructure received a seismic shock. Thierry Chilosi, Swift’s Business Lead, and Michael Spiegel, Head of Transaction Banking at Standard Chartered Bank, revealed a movement that has been quietly taking shape: the integration of a shared ledger based on blockchain directly into the core system that processes around $150 trillion annually in global transactions.

But here’s the crucial part: Swift did not build its own blockchain from scratch. Along with the revelations from Consensys CEO at Token2049 Singapore, it became clear that the entity is using Linea, Ethereum’s Layer 2 solution, as the technological backbone of its new payment settlement module.

Why Linea, not OP or Arbitrum: the logic of financial speed

To understand this decision, we need to break down the architecture of the competing Layer 2 solutions vying to dominate the institutional settlement market.

Both OP Stack (used by Coinbase’s Base) and Arbitrum (chosen by Robinhood for its Robinhood Chain) operate under the principle of Optimistic Rollup. Their mechanism is conceptually simple but operationally slow: they assume transactions are valid by default and only challenge them if someone disputes. The problem is that asset withdrawals require several days of challenge periods. For financial settlement demanding immediate fluidity, this represents an unacceptable bottleneck.

Linea, on the other hand, implements zk-EVM through instant validity proofs based on mathematical methods. This difference is fundamental: Swift and its partner institutions manage titanic volumes of settlement where each hour of delay translates into immobilized capital. With zk-EVM, final confirmation is virtually immediate, and validation is executed without compromising transaction privacy.

Essentially, Swift chose the technology that minimizes temporal friction: capital, like any fluid, will flow toward where it encounters less resistance.

The crack Ripple never closed: the institutional scale problem

When Ripple launched XRP Ledger in 2012, its promise was revolutionary: to dismantle the correspondent banking model that Swift had dominated for decades. Through RippleNet, the network connected over 300 financial institutions. Its on-demand liquidity service (ODL) demonstrated that, in markets like Southeast Asia, XRP could accelerate cross-border transactions from several days to just 3-5 seconds.

The legal battle with the SEC paralyzed Ripple in the US market between 2020 and August 2025, but it did not stop its expansion. By 2022, it was operating in 40 payment markets with an annual volume of approximately $30 billion. The 2023 court ruling clarifying that XRP is not a security, followed by the approval of the spot ETF, finally allowed its inclusion in institutional asset allocations.

Today, Ripple has real implementations: SBI Remit in Japan uses XRP for remittances to the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia; Santander offers transparent transfers via One Pay FX; Tranglo improves settlements between the peso and Thai baht; American Express and PNC Bank have optimized B2B operations. It has even collaborated with over 20 developing countries on CBDC platform development.

However, there is a strategic crack that none of these achievements can close: the dependence on XRP as the sole bridge asset.

The advantage that changes everything: asset neutrality

While Ripple built an alternative city outside the old system, Swift decided to tear down the walls from within.

Swift’s blockchain ledger is designed to support multiple assets: fiat currencies, stablecoins, CBDCs, and others. This represents a fundamental philosophical difference. In the Ripple ODL model, institutions must accept XRP’s volatility as a settlement asset. In the Swift infrastructure, the thousands of banks in its network of over 11,000 institutions covering more than 200 countries can migrate simply by updating their systems, without additional exposure to the price risk of a specific asset.

This “existing position advantage” combined with “technological compliance” creates an almost insurmountable entry barrier. Ripple has invested a decade convincing the financial sector to adopt something new. Swift only needs to modernize what already exists.

The flow of capital finds its way

The $150 trillion circulating annually through Swift are not seeking revolutions; they seek efficiency. The current system requires accumulating tens of billions of dollars in Nostro/Vostro accounts as cushions to cover the delays inherent in slow settlement and time zone differences.

When Swift achieves atomic, 24/7 settlement via Linea, that reserve will be freed. The speed of capital flow will finally adapt to the real needs of the modern economy, not the technological limitations of the 20th century.

This is not just a technical upgrade. It is the real convergence between traditional finance and decentralized technology, but under the architecture of the existing power structure. Ripple opened a breach in the wall; Swift is tearing down the entire structure to rebuild it to its own design.