Banks, Stablecoins and Tokenized Assets Move Toward the Same Crypto Rail

Reece Merrick’s 2026 prediction is best read as part of a broader institutional crypto trend, not as a single-company forecast. Ripple’s Middle East and Africa lead is pointing to the same pattern visible across stablecoin activity, U.S. policy movement, bank competition, tokenized asset experiments, and spot Bitcoin ETF adoption: major financial institutions are being pushed to decide how they will use crypto infrastructure, rather than whether they can ignore it.

A Prediction Framed Around Bank Exposure

Reece Merrick, Ripple’s Senior Executive Officer and Managing Director for the Middle East and Africa, made one of the clearest institutional crypto calls in his December 2025 and January 2026 New Year statements. His core prediction was that by the end of 2026, every significant bank, asset manager, and payment network would have meaningful crypto exposure.

Merrick’s wording matters because it shifts the discussion away from retail enthusiasm and toward operating exposure inside major financial firms. In his phrasing, the question is no longer “if,” but “how fast.” He also said the train had left the station, a direct way of describing crypto as a competitive and infrastructure issue for banks.

The context is Ripple’s role as a cross-border payment infrastructure provider working with banks and central banks across more than 55 countries. That does not make the prediction certain, but it does place it inside a practical institutional workflow: payments, treasury, settlement, stablecoins, and tokenized assets.

Three Developments Point In The Same Direction

The first development is regulatory clarity. Merrick’s argument cited the GENIUS Act as a stablecoin classification framework and the advancing CLARITY Act as relevant to commodity classification for Bitcoin and XRP. The practical implication is that compliance teams may have more defined categories for evaluating payment infrastructure, custody, treasury use, and asset exposure.

The second development is competitive pressure. Merrick described a banking environment where customers can move capital toward fintechs and platforms that support Bitcoin and stablecoin holdings. For traditional banks, the issue is not only product innovation. It is also client retention, payment speed, treasury flexibility, and the ability to serve customers who increasingly expect digital asset access.

The third development is stablecoin usage. The source figures cited $33 trillion in stablecoin transaction volume in 2025, described as twice annual Visa turnover, alongside 72% year-over-year volume growth in 2025. Those numbers present stablecoins as a payment and settlement trend large enough for institutions to monitor, even if transaction volume alone does not show revenue, user quality, or final adoption.

RLUSD And Tokenized Treasury Activity Add A Product Layer

Ripple’s own stablecoin, RLUSD, is central to the prediction because it provides a product example, not only a thesis. The draft notes that RLUSD surpassed $1 billion in market cap and became part of institutional payment flows. That figure is also used as evidence that stablecoin activity is moving from abstract discussion into measurable balance-sheet and settlement infrastructure.

The same institutional theme appears in tokenized assets. The draft says institutional clients minted TBILL tokens on the XRP Ledger through OpenEden at up to 5% yield. For Bifu readers, the important point is not the yield itself, but the structure: traditional treasury-like exposure being represented and moved through blockchain rails.

This is where stablecoins, RWA, and tokenization begin to overlap. Stablecoins can function as the payment leg, tokenized treasury products can function as the asset leg, and regulated financial institutions can become the distribution or custody layer. The trend is therefore broader than one token, one payment company, or one market cycle.

Regional Adoption Is Part Of The Signal

Merrick’s geographic focus also broadens the story. The source names the Middle East, Africa, Turkey, Nigeria, and the UAE as priority growth markets. These regions matter because cross-border payment needs, dollar access, remittance flows, fintech competition, and regulatory experimentation can make digital settlement tools more relevant to daily financial activity.

The Africa statistic is especially notable: the draft cites a 9.3% stablecoin adoption rate, described as the highest globally. That figure supports Merrick’s view that institutional adoption is not only being driven by large U.S. asset managers. In some markets, the pressure comes from user behavior and payment needs before it becomes a formal bank product line.

At the company level, Ripple’s acquisitions of Hidden Road and GTreasury in its 2025 and 2026 expansion add another institutional signal. The source does not provide transaction details, so the useful takeaway is narrower: Ripple is positioning around market infrastructure, treasury operations, and enterprise financial workflows, not only around consumer-facing crypto access.

Mid-2026 Checkpoint: Supportive, But Not Complete

By June 2026, the source describes several data points as broadly supportive of Merrick’s year-end view. These include $117 billion in spot Bitcoin ETF assets across BlackRock IBIT, Fidelity FBTC, and others; RLUSD market cap above $1 billion; and a 73% Polymarket passage probability for the CLARITY Act.

The draft also notes Standard Chartered’s $5.50 base case and $8 bull case for XRP. Those targets should not turn the article into a price-direction call. In this industry-news context, they are better treated as evidence that some institutional research is connecting XRP outcomes to the scale of adoption Merrick described.

The caveat is that exposure is not the same as deep integration. A bank can hold ETF exposure, test a stablecoin payment process, explore tokenized assets, or support limited crypto services without making crypto central to its business model. The end-2026 prediction remains a strong claim, and the market still needs evidence of sustained institutional usage.

What Bifu Readers Should Watch

For readers tracking the industry rather than chasing a single headline, the checklist is straightforward. Watch whether stablecoin frameworks such as the GENIUS Act translate into bank-ready products. Watch whether the CLARITY Act continues to advance. Watch whether RLUSD keeps expanding beyond market-cap milestones into recurring institutional payment flows.

It is also worth monitoring whether tokenized treasury activity on networks such as the XRP Ledger becomes a repeatable workflow for asset managers and corporate treasuries. One-off pilots can be useful, but repeat usage, clearer reporting, and integration with existing treasury systems would carry more weight.

The pattern to follow is convergence: banks, payment networks, stablecoin issuers, asset managers, and tokenization providers are moving toward shared financial rails. For Bifu’s “One account, trade the world” audience, that matters because market access is increasingly being shaped by infrastructure choices made before assets ever appear on a trading screen.