Brad Garlinghouse marked ten years of Ripple's Swell conference with a post on X Wednesday21. He called it Ripple's best year ever. The post drew 7,939 likes by the CryptoLately.com Desk's count, more than any other crypto post that day. Two days earlier, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency had cleared Ripple's national trust bank charter, after a fifteen-month federal review2. Garlinghouse's own words reach back further than that review. At the charter's final approval, he put it this way: “The revolution isn't happening outside the system. It's happening from within it.”5. Nearly five years earlier, the Securities and Exchange Commission had sued Ripple and called its main product an unregistered security26. Ripple's chief executive picked a bank charter to mark his best year. That year caps a five-year stretch since a federal lawsuit put the company's standing in the United States on trial.
Brad Garlinghouse@bgarlinghouseOn the 10th anniversary of @RippleSwell, it felt apt to share Ripple’s best year ever, and why the vision for an Internet of Value will be achieved. pic.twitter.com/ThE7h0zRQU
The SEC Case Came First
Securities regulators sued Ripple on Dec. 22, 202026. The SEC's complaint called XRP, Ripple's token, an unregistered security. A judge set Ripple's penalty at $125 million in August 2024. Both sides dropped their last appeals on Aug. 7, 2025, Coincub reported27. Garlinghouse called the result a win when the SEC first said it would drop its fight. "We are now closing a chapter in crypto history," he said that March4.
Ripple filed for its OCC trust bank charter that same July2. That filing came weeks before the SEC case fully closed. Conditional approval followed five months later, on Dec. 12, 2025. Final approval landed on Oct. 26, 2026, ten months after that. Fifteen months is how long the whole federal review ran, start to finish.
Ripple's Path From a 2020 SEC Suit to Its Oct. 26, 2026 Bank Charter
Five dated steps in Ripple's federal legal and regulatory record
Read the chart as a table
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Dec. 22, 2020 | SEC sues Ripple |
| Aug. 7, 2025 | Both sides drop their appeals |
| July 2025 | Ripple files for its OCC charter |
| Dec. 12, 2025 | OCC's conditional approval |
| Oct. 26, 2026 | OCC's final approval |
Both sides, in their own words
Does a charter that skips deposits and loans still make Ripple a bank the rest of finance can trust?
“The revolution isn't happening outside the system. It's happening from within it.”
“The OCC's approval of Ripple's trust charter application based on the agency's flawed chartering rule for national trust banks will put U.S. consumers at risk”
A Trust Charter Skips Deposits and Loans
Ripple's trust charter carries the word bank. It still skips the two things most people picture at that word2. Those two things are taking deposits and making loans. Ripple's new unit can manage RLUSD's reserves instead. It can act as their trustee, too. Enterprise digital asset custody comes with the charter as well.
Standard Custody & Trust Company still issues RLUSD under its own New York state license8. The new federal charter layers on top of that license. Decrypt reported BNY now serves as a reserve custodian for RLUSD. RLUSD's market value sat near $2.6 billion when Decrypt measured it on Oct. 27, 2026. Deposit insurance stays off the table under this charter. The gap between a trust charter and a full bank matters more than the word "bank" in this story's own headline suggests.
Ripple Builds a Bigger Business Around the Charter
Garlinghouse used the charter's approval as the backdrop for a bigger pitch. The company says its product revenue is approaching a $900 million yearly run rate1. It counts more than 1,700 institutions as customers. He framed the moment this way: “As traditional and digital finance converge, market infrastructure is migrating to modern rails. Settlement is moving to real-time, 24/7.”
Ripple and Robinhood expanded their own deal at Swell's kickoff9. Robinhood will carry RLUSD on its own chain and through Bitstamp. The brokerage counted 28.6 million funded customers as of August, Cointelegraph reported. Robinhood plans to adopt Ripple's treasury tools for its own cash management too.
BNY's own custody deal grew at the same event. The bank now holds XRP and RLUSD through its digital asset custody platform5. BNY and Ripple plan to let BNY's clients mint and redeem RLUSD directly through the bank. That plan sits inside Swell 2026, Ripple's tenth conference under that name. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent opened it with a video address, U.Today reported3. The event drew more than 1,500 people this year, up from roughly 600 last year, Startup Fortune reported10. It ran across 80 sessions and three stages at The Shed, in Manhattan's Hudson Yards.
Community Bankers Call the Charter a Side Door
The Independent Community Bankers of America sued the OCC on Oct. 2, 20267. That suit targets the OCC rule behind charters like Ripple's. Rebeca Romero Rainey runs the trade group as its president and chief executive. She named Ripple's charter directly. “The OCC's approval of Ripple's trust charter application based on the agency's flawed chartering rule for national trust banks will put U.S. consumers at risk,” Rainey said6.
Her group argues the charter lets Ripple skip a real bank's capital rules and its consolidated federal supervision7. FDIC deposit insurance gets skipped too, the group says. Cody Carbone leads The Digital Chamber, a crypto trade group that disagrees. "Many community banks want to partner with digital asset firms," Carbone said.
The OCC's own answer sits inside the charter's text. Ripple's trust bank skips deposits entirely. It skips loans too. That combination carries a narrower federal footprint than the retail bank Rainey's warning pictures. The lawsuit still asks a federal court to decide whether the distinction holds up. A ruling there would settle the question for every crypto firm chasing the same charter, Ripple included.
Four More Posts Carried Different Risks That Day
Crypto's feeds carried four more widely shared posts the same stretch. Each one pointed to a different kind of risk than Ripple's charter did.
Michael Saylor leads Strategy, the public company that holds a large stash of Bitcoin. He answered a warning from Justin Drake, an Ethereum researcher. Drake had posted that a mathematical break in Bitcoin's keys was reasonable to brace for "in the worst case in months not years,"12. He told large holders to plan a careful move to fresh, unused addresses. Saylor pushed back hard on X, PANews reported11. “Saying there's no reason to own Bitcoin because AI can hack a crypto app is like saying there's no reason to speak English because AI can hack a messaging app,” he wrote22.
Saylor's post drew 7,349 likes and 709 replies by the CryptoLately.com Desk's count22. Bitcoin traded near $81,200 as of 23:09 UTC on Oct. 28, 2026, per CoinGecko, up about half a percent18. Saylor posted again hours later about a different matter. Strategy's shareholders had just approved a change called Daily Dividends, Unchained reported13. The change moves payouts on four preferred stocks to every calendar day. Saylor announced it on X, in a post that drew 5,462 likes23. He said 99.3 percent of votes favored the change. One stock, STRC, switches on Nov. 1. The other three follow on Jan. 1, 2027.
Chainlink posted its own announcement that afternoon, drawing 499 likes24. The network expanded a deal with S&P Global Ratings to put lending vault risk scores onchain14. Johann Eid, Chainlink Labs' chief business officer, called the move a step toward independent data onchain. "Institutional-grade, independent risk analysis directly into markets where capital is deployed," he said. The lending vault market Chainlink named had grown to $10 billion by September, up from $1.5 billion two years earlier, crypto.news reported15. LINK traded near $11.81 as of 23:15 UTC on Oct. 28, 2026, per CoinGecko, up about 2.4 percent19.
Chainlink@chainlinkROAD TO Link:NYC 🗽
NEW: Chainlink brings Vault Risk Assessments onchain with @SPGlobalRatings, the global credit rating agency.
Now live on @base, the integration brings independent vault risk analysis to the $10B lending vault market, deploying them according to defined… pic.twitter.com/C9gbn74OIS
Jupiter and BitGo rounded out the list with a quieter launch, and far fewer likes: 29725. The two built a validator that lets BitGo's institutional clients stake Solana directly from their custody accounts16. BitGo backs the setup with insurance that tops out at $250 million. SOL traded near $102.36 as of 23:15 UTC on Oct. 28, 2026, per CoinGecko, up about 1.1 percent20. Kash Dhanda, Jupiter's chief operating officer, framed the deal as infrastructure. "Running a validator is how we invest in that base layer," he said. "An important part of how institutions manage their SOL holdings," said Abel Seow, who leads BitGo's sales team in Asia.
Jupiter@JupiterExchangeWe're excited to announce partnership with @BitGo to launch a validator built for institutions.
BitGo's institutional clients can now stake SOL with Jupiter, directly from their existing custody accounts.
Solana's leading DeFi platform, meet the custodian institutions… pic.twitter.com/t4Zq9pfi1A
Garlinghouse's Charter Post Drew 7,939 Likes, Most of Five Posts on Oct. 28, 2026
Likes on each post, read by the CryptoLately.com Desk at 22:00 UTC on Oct. 28, 2026
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Garlinghouse, Ripple's charter | 7,939 likes |
| Saylor, AI and Bitcoin | 7,349 likes |
| Saylor, daily dividends | 5,462 likes |
| Chainlink, S&P ratings | 499 likes |
| Jupiter, SOL validator | 297 likes |
By the numbers
- Nearly five years: the span from the SEC's Dec. 22, 2020 lawsuit against Ripple to its last dropped appeal on Aug. 7, 20252627.
- Fifteen months: the span from Ripple's July 2025 OCC filing to its Oct. 26, 2026 final charter approval2.
- $2.6 billion: RLUSD's market value when Decrypt measured it on Oct. 27, 20268.
- 28.6 million: Robinhood's funded customers as of August 2026, per Cointelegraph9.
- More than 1,500: attendees Ripple expects at Swell 2026, up from roughly 600 last year, per Startup Fortune10.
- $1.33: XRP's price on CoinGecko as of 22:57 UTC on Oct. 28, 202617.
- $10 billion: the crypto lending vault market S&P Global Ratings now scores onchain, up from $1.5 billion two years earlier15.
- $250 million: the insurance ceiling on Jupiter and BitGo's new institutional SOL validator16.
What to watch
Watch the Independent Community Bankers of America's lawsuit against the OCC. A ruling there would settle whether Ripple's charter, and every charter like it, skips the oversight a bank carries. Ripple's RLUSD rollout inside the Robinhood app deserves a close watch too, since Cointelegraph reported it lands later this year. Chainlink's S&P-graded vaults and Jupiter's institutional validator both still owe the market their first real users. Each one will show whether Wednesday's other posts carried lasting weight.
Sources
- Ripple, "Ripple Reports a Banner Year, Approaching a $900 Million Product Revenue Run Rate, Signs Multi-Solution Partnerships with BNY, Robinhood, DriveWealth and Water.org," Oct. 28, 2026, https://ripple.com/ripple-press/ripple-reports-banner-year-approaching-900m-product-revenue-run-rate-signs-multi-solution-partnerships/
- Danny Park, "Ripple gains final OCC approval to launch national trust bank and bring RLUSD under federal oversight," The Block, Oct. 26, 2026, https://www.theblock.co/news/regulation/2026-10-26-ripple-gains-final-occ-approval-rlusd-431810
- "Garlinghouse Celebrates Historic Ripple Swell Milestone," U.Today, Oct. 28, 2026, https://u.today/garlinghouse-celebrates-historic-ripple-swell-milestone
- "SEC to drop Ripple case," Banking Dive, March 20, 2025, https://www.bankingdive.com/news/sec-drop-ripple-case-xrp-lawsuit-125-million-penalty-garlinghouse-alderoty-gensler/743089/
- "Ripple gets OCC's unconditional charter approval," Banking Dive, Oct. 27, 2026, https://www.bankingdive.com/news/ripple-occ-charter-bny-robinhood-partnerships-garlinghouse-alderoty/872896/
- "ICBA Opposes OCC Approval of Ripple's National Trust Bank Charter Application," Independent Community Bankers of America, Oct. 27, 2026, https://www.icba.org/web/payments/w/icba-opposes-occ-approval-of-ripple-s-national-trust-bank-charter-application
- "Community Bankers Sue US Banking Regulator Over 'Side Door' Crypto Charters," Bitcoin.com News, Oct. 4, 2026, https://news.bitcoin.com/regulation-and-legal/community-bankers-sue-us-banking-regulator-over-side-door-crypto-charters/
- "Ripple Wins Final OCC Approval for Trust Bank Behind $2.6B RLUSD Stablecoin," Decrypt, Oct. 27, 2026, https://decrypt.co/381899/ripple-wins-final-occ-approval-for-trust-bank-behind-2-6b-rlusd-stablecoin
- "Ripple, Robinhood expand partnership on RLUSD for retail, institutional markets," Cointelegraph, Oct. 28, 2026, https://cointelegraph.com/news/ripple-robinhood-expand-partnership-rlusd-retail-institutional-markets
- "Ripple brings its biggest Swell conference yet to New York's Hudson Yards," Startup Fortune, Oct. 27, 2026, https://startupfortune.com/ripple-brings-its-biggest-swell-conference-yet-to-new-yorks-hudson-yards/
- "Michael Saylor: AI Can Breach Crypto Apps, but That Is No Reason to Stop Holding Bitcoin," PANews, Oct. 28, 2026, https://panews.io/articles/01a18251-80ac-7655-873e-e6303ca32440
- "Move Your Bitcoin? Security Researcher's Viral Warning Says AI Could Crack Crypto in Months," Yahoo Finance, Oct. 28, 2026, https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/move-bitcoin-security-researchers-viral-101215499.html
- "Strategy Shareholders Approve Daily Dividends on Its Four Preferred Stocks," Unchained, Oct. 28, 2026, https://unchainedcrypto.com/strategy-shareholders-approve-daily-dividends-on-its-four-preferred-stocks/
- "Chainlink Expands Collaboration With S&P Global Ratings To Bring Vault Risk Assessments Onchain," PR Newswire, Oct. 28, 2026, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chainlink-expands-collaboration-with-sp-global-ratings-to-bring-vault-risk-assessments-onchain-302921507.html
- "S&P launches risk checks for crypto lending vaults," crypto.news, Oct. 28, 2026, https://crypto.news/sp-starts-measuring-how-risky-crypto-lending-vaults-are/
- "Jupiter and BitGo launch validator for institutional SOL staking from custody," Crypto Briefing, Oct. 28, 2026, https://cryptobriefing.com/jupiter-bitgo-institutional-sol-validator/
- CoinGecko, "XRP price," Oct. 28, 2026, https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/xrp
- CoinGecko, "Bitcoin price," Oct. 28, 2026, https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin
- CoinGecko, "Chainlink price," Oct. 28, 2026, https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/chainlink
- CoinGecko, "Solana price," Oct. 28, 2026, https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/solana
- Brad Garlinghouse, post on X, Oct. 28, 2026, https://x.com/bgarlinghouse/status/2115447688875679834
- Michael Saylor, post on X, Oct. 28, 2026, https://x.com/saylor/status/2115408216763027619
- Michael Saylor, post on X, Oct. 28, 2026, https://x.com/saylor/status/2115451822915928244
- Chainlink, post on X, Oct. 28, 2026, https://x.com/chainlink/status/2115429911087198492
- Jupiter, post on X, Oct. 28, 2026, https://x.com/JupiterExchange/status/2115462300501266447
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "SEC Charges Ripple and Two Executives with Conducting $1.3 Billion Unregistered Securities Offering," Dec. 22, 2020, https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2020-338
- "Ripple vs SEC: Full Case Timeline, Rulings, and 2025 Settlement," Coincub, Aug. 8, 2025, https://coincub.com/blog/ripple-vs-sec/