Ripple chief technology officer (CTO) David “JoelKatz” Schwartz used a late-Wednesday post on X to frame a surge of payments and stablecoin companies launching their own base-layer networks as validation of blockchain’s role in finance—and to restate how the XRP Ledger’s design differs from the new entrants.

“We’ve been seeing more and more players in the payments and stablecoins space launch their own blockchains. To me, that’s a clear sign the market sees blockchain as core financial infrastructure — something we’ve believed in and have been building toward on the XRP Ledger for over 13 years,” he wrote, adding, “Launching a blockchain is hard. Building an ecosystem with developers, liquidity, trust, and real-world usage is even harder.”

Competition For Ripple And The XRP Ledger?

Schwartz situated XRPL’s posture in the long-running debate over network governance. “Some blockchains are built with permissioned validator sets controlled by one entity or a small group. This can provide control and compliance for specific, closed-network scenarios, but it limits reach, resilience, and the ability for anyone to contribute to securing and growing the network,” he wrote.

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“As many of you know, the XRPL is public and permissionless at its core, with optional permissioned features for regulated use cases.” He argued that the ledger’s open base “makes it adaptable, interoperable, and well-positioned to serve as critical infrastructure for the world’s financial system — connecting assets, markets, and participants seamlessly across borders.”

The remarks arrive as two US fintech heavyweights move into L1 territory. Circle this week unveiled Arc, an EVM-compatible Layer-1 it says is “purpose-built for stablecoin finance,” with dollar-denominated fees (USDC as native gas), opt-in privacy, a built-in RFQ-style FX engine, and “deterministic sub-second settlement finality” via the Malachite consensus engine. Circle says Arc will enter private testnet in the coming weeks, target public testnet in the fall, and a mainnet beta in 2026.

Separately, Stripe is developing Tempo, a high-performance, payments-focused L1 being built in partnership with crypto VC firm Paradigm. Tempo is designed to run code compatible with Ethereum, is currently in stealth with a small team, and it remains unclear whether it will have a native token.

Schwartz also highlighted specific XRPL design choices he sees as aligned with financial-grade settlement. “It’s encouraging to see some newer chains adopt design choices that have long been part of the XRPL’s architecture, like deterministic finality … It shows there’s growing alignment in the industry on the importance of predictable, reliable settlement for financial applications without expensive validation,” he wrote.

He reiterated that XRPL fees are meant to stay “low and predictable, just fractions of a cent, without a separate gas token,” noting that “every transaction on the XRPL uses/burns XRP.” XRPL’s technical documentation specifies that each transaction destroys a small amount of XRP as an anti-spam fee, and describes consensus rules aimed at deterministic ordering and finality.

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Where Schwartz drew a line was on governance flexibility. He acknowledged that permissioned validator sets can make sense for “specific, closed-network scenarios,” but underscored XRPL’s approach: a public, permissionless core with opt-in controls for compliance needs.

The ledger’s native features include Authorized Trust Lines, Deposit Authorization/Preauthorization, and issuer-level freeze tooling for issued assets—not for XRP itself—allowing regulated token issuers to gate or police flows without converting the entire network into a walled garden. XRPL’s own FAQ emphasizes that it is a decentralized, public blockchain where changes require supermajority validator approval.

The strategic contrast with the new fintech chains is already visible. Arc explicitly centers USDC—making fees dollar-denominated and embedding Circle’s payments stack—whereas XRPL retains XRP for fees and settlement while supporting issued assets through trust-line mechanics. If Tempo proceeds as reported, Stripe would be pursuing an Ethereum-compatible L1 optimized for predictable payments performance, potentially mirroring Arc’s enterprise-centric pitch but with a broader merchant-services integration surface.

Schwartz closed on a deliberately expansive note about the competitive set: “Looking forward to the next phase of XRPL innovations, bringing more programmability, compliance-grade capabilities, and deeper liquidity for institutional use,” he wrote—before welcoming rivals: “And to those just getting started… Welcome to the party! The crypto tent is only getting bigger.”

At press time, XRP traded at $3.23.

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

Financial technology middlemen reportedly sent investment banking giant JPMorgan Chase 1.89 billion data requests in the month of June.

In an internal company memo reviewed by CNBC, a JPMorgan systems employee noted that only 13% of those requests were initiated by a customer for transactions.

“Aggregators are accessing customer data multiple times daily, even when the customer is not actively using the app. These access requests are massively taxing our systems.”

An anonymous source with knowledge of the memo tells CNBC that the requests often involve helping fintech companies bolster their products or stop fraud.

Earlier this month, JPMorgan informed fintech companies such as PayPal, Venmo and Coinbase that they will need to begin paying to access their customers’ bank account information, a move that sparked controversy in the digital asset sector.

Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss claims the investment bank is attempting to sabotage fintech and crypto firms, accusing JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon of trying to wreck President Donald Trump’s attempts to embrace digital assets.

“This will bankrupt fintechs that help you link your bank accounts to crypto companies like Gemini, Coinbase, and Kraken so you can easily fund your account with fiat to buy Bitcoin and crypto…

Jamie Dimon and his cronies are trying to undercut President Trump’s mandate to make America the pro-innovation and the crypto capital of the world. We must fight back!”

Dimon, however, defended the fee proposal during the bank’s second-quarter earnings call.

“So, this is very important. So forget pricing for a second, we are in favor of the customer, but we think the customer has the right to if they want to share their information. What we ask people to do is, what do they – do they actually know what’s being shared? What is actually being shared? It shouldn’t be everything. It should be what their customer wants. It should have a time limit because some of these things went on for years. It should not be re-marketed or resold to third parties. And so, we’re kind of in favor of all that, done properly.

And then the payment, it just costs a lot of money to set up the APIs (application programming interfaces) and stuff like that to run the system’s protection. So, we just think it should be done and done right. And that’s the main part. It’s not like you can’t do it.”

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One official at a federal consumer protection agency is reportedly raising concerns over JPMorgan Chase’s plan to charge fintech fees for customers’ account data.

An unnamed politically appointed official with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) believes the agency’s efforts to kill in court an open banking rule enacted under former US President Biden may be giving JPMorgan Chase the opportunity to charge the fees, reports Bloomberg.

The same official is discussing the issue with concerned fintech firms, according to multiple sources who asked to remain anonymous to talk about the controversial matter.

The CFPB open banking rule, which was finalized last year, prevents banks from imposing charges on third parties such as Coinbase, Venmo and PayPal to access customers’ deposit and credit card account information as a way to ensure competition.

However, CFPB’s Acting Director Russell Vought is now asking a federal judge to vacate the rule on several grounds, arguing that Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act “does not authorize the Bureau to prohibit banks from charging any fees for maintaining and providing access through the required developer interfaces.”

Critics of JPMorgan Chase’s fee proposal say it could stifle the fintech sector.

Graham Steele, the former assistant Treasury secretary for financial institutions in the Biden administration, says the Trump administration’s efforts to shutter the CFPB and delete Biden-related policies are wreaking havoc in the fintech industry.

“By repealing the rule without fully thinking it through, they have caused a lot of problems in the marketplace and for consumers.”

The CFPB did not respond to the media’s request for comment at time of publication.

Meanwhile, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon defended the fee proposal during the bank’s second-quarter earnings call.

“It just costs a lot of money to set up the APIs and stuff like that to run the system protection.”

Critics of the bank fees include cryptocurrency companies and investors.

Says Alex Rampell, a general partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz,

“Make no mistake: this isn’t about a new revenue stream. It’s about strangling competition. And if they get away with this, every bank will follow.”

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