Ripple CEO Forecasts $3T Stablecoin Market by 2031

At Consensus 2026 in Miami, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse projected the stablecoin market could grow to $3 trillion by 2031. He referenced a record market cap near $322 billion in May 2026 and noted the figure would require roughly tenfold growth over five years, implying an annualized growth rate of about 57%.

Garlinghouse framed the forecast around two main drivers: wider use of on-chain payments and clearer U.S. regulation. He cited the global payments market as a source of demand, referring to roughly $13 trillion in annual payment flows and the potential to settle a material share of those flows on-chain. He also pointed to pending U.S. legislation, including the CLARITY Act and GENIUS Act, as providing legal frameworks that could encourage institutional deployment.

He urged action on the CLARITY Act, saying, “Do I think it’s perfect? Hell no,” and warning that if the bill does not advance through the Senate in the coming weeks, the chance of passage this year would fall sharply ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. A Senate-brokered compromise on stablecoin yield rules removed a major sticking point, but committee scheduling remained unsettled.

Garlinghouse highlighted recent industry developments during the same week: the launch of SoFiUSD as the first national bank stablecoin and a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation proposal for anti-money-laundering standards for stablecoin issuers. Consensus 2026 drew more than 20,000 attendees and senior U.S. regulators.

Ripple has direct commercial interests tied to a larger stablecoin market. The company launched the RLUSD dollar stablecoin in 2024, operates cross-border payment corridors using XRP and stablecoins for settlement, and is developing treasury products aimed at institutional flows. Garlinghouse acknowledged that the $3 trillion projection aligns with those business activities.

He cited survey data showing strong institutional interest in digital assets and outlined an infrastructure trend of stablecoin reserves moving on-chain into tokenized Treasury and real-world-asset custody solutions. He described how tokenized reserves and on-chain treasury products could increase the utility of stablecoins for institutional treasury management.

Analysts and market models vary. Some projections place stablecoin supply between $1 trillion and $2 trillion by the end of the decade, while other models estimate supply near $420 billion by the end of 2026. Garlinghouse’s projection rests on faster institutional adoption, payments corridor migration to tokenized settlement, and legislative progress in the United States.

He emphasized the forecast depended on both payments adoption and regulatory clarity and warned that failure to secure a clear U.S. legal framework would materially reduce the likelihood of the $3 trillion outcome.