Different assets.

Different issuers.

Different pools of liquidity.

Connecting the networks does not mean a buyer automatically exists for every pair.

That is where XRP's core design becomes extremely relevant.

XRPL already has a native DEX.

It has AMM liquidity integrated into that exchange environment.

Its payment engine can search through paths involving issued assets and XRP.

And XRP can function as a common intermediary.

Asset A.

XRP.

Asset B.

Instead of building deep direct liquidity between every possible combination.

That matters more as the number of assets explodes.

Ten assets create 45 unique bilateral pairs.

100 assets create 4,950.

1,000 assets create 499,500.

10,000 assets create almost 50 million possible pairs.

Imagine trying to build deep liquidity for all of those independently.

That is the fragmentation problem.

A bridge asset creates another model.

Instead of every asset needing a huge market against everything else, liquidity can concentrate around a common neutral intermediary.

That is the economic argument behind XRP.

And Schnabel is describing exactly the kind of world where that argument becomes more important.

More tokenized money.

More tokenized assets.

More networks.

More conversion.

More settlement.

More liquidity paths.

That can mean:

tokenized EUR → XRP → RLUSD.

Bank A deposit token → XRP → Bank B deposit token.

Stablecoin A → XRP → stablecoin B.

Tokenized cash → XRP → another tokenized financial asset.

The bigger the tokenized economy becomes, the bigger the liquidity graph becomes.

That is why I think $XRP could end up being the biggest monetary opportunity of the three.

$QNT solves how the networks connect.

$LINK helps the networks communicate, react and access trusted information.

$XRP can help move value between the markets that those networks create.

And XRPL already has serious infrastructure behind that idea.

Roughly 3–5 second settlement.

Fractions-of-a-cent transaction costs.

More than $1 trillion in value moved historically.

More than 3.9 billion transactions processed.

Native asset issuance.

DEX.

AMM.

Escrow.

Credentials.

Compliance features.

Tokenization infrastructure.

And increasingly, institutional credit.

That last part matters.

Because Schnabel's world is not merely about faster payments.

It is capital markets moving onchain.

Once securities and deposits become programmable assets, institutions are going to want more than settlement.

They will want lending.

Collateral.

Credit.

Trading.

Liquidity.

That is exactly where XRPL is going.

Multi-Purpose Tokens make issuing real-world financial assets easier.

Credentials and Permissioned Domains bring institutional compliance controls into the ledger.

The Lending Protocol and Single Asset Vault architecture push XRPL toward credit markets.

Put all of that together and the progression becomes:

issue the asset.

settle the asset.

trade the asset.

provide liquidity.

borrow against the asset.

That is a financial system.

And Ripple's position in Europe makes the timing even more interesting.

On February 2, 2026, Ripple received a full Electronic Money Institution licence in Luxembourg from the CSSF.

Ripple says it now has more than 75 regulatory licences globally.

Then on July 6, Ripple received full MiCA CASP authorization in Luxembourg, opening regulated cryptoasset services across all 30 EEA countries.

That puts Ripple directly inside the European regulatory environment at the exact time the ECB is building Pontes and designing Appia.

Ripple Payments has already processed more than $100 billion and operates across more than 60 markets.

Ripple says payments, custody, liquidity and treasury management are all part of its institutional infrastructure, with RLUSD and XRP underpinning those solutions.

So compare the two sides.

The ECB is talking about central-bank money on DLT, tokenized deposits, stablecoins, securities, interconnected networks, programmability and 24/7 infrastructure.