Reece Merrick, Ripple’s senior executive officer and managing director for the Middle East and Africa, was a featured speaker at a recent event by the Gulf Capital Markets Association (formerly the Gulf Bond and Sukuk Association), which represents debt and equity markets in the Arabian Gulf region.
In a tweet, Merrick shared a summary of the insights shared at the event, highlighting the clear shift in institutional finance moving on-chain. He further added that Ripple is uniquely positioned to provide the infrastructure and liquidity needed to bridge traditional finance and the digital assets of the future. “Evolution is happening now,” Merrick said.
The talk at yesterday’s @GulfCapMarket event was great. The changes are obvious. Institutional finance is moving on-chain.
At @Ripple, we are uniquely positioned to provide the infrastructure and liquidity needed to bridge the future of traditional finance and digital assets. … pic.twitter.com/FjuqOPnIFr
— Reece Merrick (@reece_merrick) January 23, 2026
Merrick’s outlook is consistent with broader views shared this week by Ripple President Monica Long.
According to the president of Ripple, the cryptocurrency industry is entering an era of production. Long predicts that cryptocurrencies will become institutionalized this year as reliable infrastructure and real-world practicality drive banks, enterprises, and providers to expand from the experimental stage into stablecoins, on-chain assets, crypto custody, and broader institutional investment.
According to Long, this move marks a real turning point for the internet of institutional adoption and value.
what are you waiting for XRP?
Ripple executive Reese Merrick hinted that evolution continues. At the heart of this evolution is the XRP itself, XRP Ledger’s institutional utility strengthens the fundamental demand and use case for cryptocurrencies.
of XRP The ledger lending protocol is included in rippled v 3.0.0, but is not yet available for voting.
Beyond confidentiality, zero-knowledge proofs – XRP Ledger is currently in prototyping, but will also have enhanced scalability and interoperability, potentially enabling broader institutional adoption in tokenization, credit, and payments.
For institutions, privacy is the next step in making XRPL infrastructure fit for high-value markets.
Authorized domains, the agency’s compliance building block, are scheduled for mainnet activation on February 4th and are majority.
