Garlinghouse's 2017 Pitch: XRP is 1,000 Times Faster Than Bitcoin

Eight years ago, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse made headlines when he said XRP is 1,000 times faster than Bitcoin. At the time, XRP was on a meteoric rise in 2017, with its price up roughly 25,000% that year.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Garlinghouse framed Ripple's mission as compressing payments from days to seconds. He explained that existing payment networks were slow and cumbersome, requiring people to send money by flying there in person, which seemed absurd given the age of the internet.

Garlinghouse tied XRP's explosive year directly to Ripple's approach of working within existing regulatory frameworks and partnering with already-regulated institutions like banks. He argued that reduced uncertainty was part of what fueled investor confidence in XRP specifically.

The volatility of XRP was a concern, but Garlinghouse gave an answer that has been repeated by Ripple since: 'XRP has clearly been volatile, as all digital assets have been,' he said. 'It's a thousand times faster than Bitcoin, so the volatility risk you're taking around XRP is only for three seconds.'