Swift's Blockchain Ledger and IBM: Where Does XRP Fit?

On September 24, IBM connected to Swift’s new blockchain ledger, the ledger many XRP holders said Swift would have to build to survive. IBM’s announcement does not name a single coin. Yet the company whose code sits underneath IBM’s connection switched on full XRP Ledger support in January, and one of the 17 banks piloting Swift’s ledger already has a Ripple connection.

This video pulls those threads together. It gives the parts that are good for XRP holders and the parts that sting, and closes with three decisions holders face while banks build their own lanes.

How did Swift go from “further out” to its own ledger?

In January 2019, at a fintech conference in Paris, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse sat next to Gottfried Leibbrandt, then running Swift. Garlinghouse said decentralized systems are likely to win over time, and that Swift is not one today.

Leibbrandt answered that blockchain was “further out.” Swift had run a proof of concept with 40 banks, the largest Hyperledger implementation outside IBM, and banks told Swift it worked but was not clearly better than what they had.

Six and a half years later, in September 2025, Swift announced at its conference in Frankfurt that it was adding a blockchain ledger to its own systems. Its chief business officer said Swift was working with ConsenSys on the first phase of the prototype and would consult central banks to choose “the best tokens” for the exchange.

Then, on July 9 this year, Swift said the ledger was ready. It had been built in nine months, with 17 large banks lined up to pilot it.

What do banks actually move on Swift’s ledger?

They move tokenized deposits: a bank balance turned into a digital token. It is still the bank’s money on the bank’s own books, but it moves at any hour, any day.

Live tests have followed:

Date	What happened
August 19	HSBC and Standard Chartered ran the first live cross-border payment on Swift’s ledger
September 2	Citi did the same with two more banks
September 24	IBM’s Digital Asset Haven connected to the ledger, in beta
July to December	Banks run what Citi calls a proof of concept, a test run

Swift’s own pitch is that the sending bank commits the funds upfront, and that commitment is visible to the other parties in real time. The money is promised the moment it is sent, and it moves on nights and weekends.

What did IBM’s announcement leave out?

IBM’s platform, Digital Asset Haven, can now connect to Swift’s ledger. The connection is in beta and uses ISO 20022, the bank message format many holders associate with XRP. What the release never says is which coin, if any, sits between two banks. There is no XRP in it, and no Stellar either.

The host’s view: Swift did not die. It did what many holders predicted and added a ledger. He counts that as a point for the people who called it years ago.

What’s the case against XRP here?

The Motley Fool made it the same day: why rent someone else’s bridge when banks can move their own money on a ledger they already share? It also suggested Ripple now leans more on its own stablecoin than on XRP.

The video calls that a fair case, then points to a gap. In the first live payment, the ledger matched up who owed what between the two banks, but the actual money still settled through existing systems. Each bank’s token stays on its own books. Swift has not said what, if anything, will carry value between two different banks’ tokens, and holders see that as the job XRP was built for. Swift’s own executive said it would choose the best tokens, so the video considers the door still open, while noting it may take longer than holders want.

Ripple has never said it is all-or-nothing on XRP. On CNBC, Garlinghouse said Ripple at its core is a payments company: it uses stablecoins, and it uses XRP where it makes sense.

Where do XRP and Ripple actually show up?

Under IBM’s connection. IBM built Digital Asset Haven with a company called DLT Finance, and on January 30 DLT Finance switched on full support for the XRP Ledger. Its CEO said in a clip that IBM has access to everything DLT Finance integrates and builds, so banks using IBM could eventually use it.

The video suggests searching “DLT Finance XRP Ledger” to see this on the company’s own site. It is equally clear about the limit: this does not put XRP on Swift’s ledger.

What did IBM say about XRP in 2019?

In March 2019, IBM launched its own cross-border payments network, World Wire, which ran on Stellar. A month before that launch, IBM’s head of blockchain gave a longer interview. He credited Ripple for the vision of using a digital asset for immediate settlement, said Ripple was looking at XRP as its primary settlement asset, and said that for IBM the settlement asset could be Lumens, XRP or even Bitcoin.

World Wire went quiet afterwards. By 2021, CoinDesk was describing it as something IBM had previously tried. The new release names no coin at all, Stellar included.

Why does BNY matter?

BNY, the Bank of New York, is on Swift’s list of 17 pilot banks. On July 9, 2025, BNY was picked to hold the reserves behind Ripple’s stablecoin, RLUSD. Garlinghouse said on CNBC that morning that working with the most trusted, best-capitalized partners helps build trust, and called BNY one of the most trusted custody banks.

Swift announced its ledger was ready a year later to the day. The video says the matching dates are probably chance, but BNY appearing on both lists is on the record.

Three decisions the video puts to holders

The host’s point is that banks arrived with a plan for their money on day one, while many holders wait for a headline that says “XRP.” His suggested check: open whatever holds your XRP and ask whether it is earning anything, and who is actually holding it. He recalls Celsius pausing all withdrawals on June 12, 2022, leaving customers unable to reach coins they had handed over for interest.

He then frames three questions:

1. Where does your XRP sit while banks build their lane, and who actually holds it?
2. Is it earning anything while you wait for Swift to name a token?
3. When would you move in or out if that name ever arrives? Deciding on the day of a headline is how most people get it wrong.

What to watch next

• The Swift pilot. The proof of concept runs to December. Watch whether Swift says what will carry value between banks’ tokens.
• IBM’s connection leaving beta, and whether any asset is named.
• Ripple’s Swell conference in New York, October 27 to 29, with BNY on the speaker list.

The video leaves one open question: is IBM naming no coin a company keeping its options open, or a choice that has not been made yet?