Garlinghouse Slams Traditional Finance as 'Too Slow' After Dutch Central Bank's $11 Billion Gold Shuffle

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse pointed to an $11 billion gold relocation by the Dutch central bank as evidence that traditional finance is 'too slow.' The transfer involved moving roughly 86 tonnes of gold from New York and Ottawa to London, but most of it was a paper exercise. Only 27 tonnes physically crossed the Atlantic.

Garlinghouse argued that if ownership can change without moving the underlying asset, blockchain could make that transfer considerably faster. He cited the example of tokenized gold on the XRP Ledger, which has exceeded $1 million in cumulative trading volume.

The Dutch central bank's decision to move 59 tonnes of gold from New York was seen as a crisis preparation measure rather than a signal about Washington. The rebalancing shifted the distribution of Dutch reserves, with London now holding 32.1% and New York holding 18.5%. Garlinghouse also revisited Germany's earlier repatriation program, which took several years to bring home 674 tonnes of gold from Paris and New York.