Foreign media: Analysts say XRP is like "the gold of internet speed"

Foreign media: A person related to XRP Ledger recently stated in an interview that XRP combines the neutral qualities of gold with the fast settlement capabilities of digital assets, making it more suitable to serve as a cross-market liquidity bridge. However, this view mainly represents an individual's opinion and is not an announcement of a new official product or regulatory development.

Why compare it to gold

The interviewee, Vet, is a contributor to the XRP Ledger Foundation and one of the dUNL validators for XRP Ledger. He believes gold has long been regarded as a neutral asset because it does not have a single issuer, and holding or trusting it does not depend on any third-party institution.

However, he also pointed out that gold has obvious issues when used for payments. Physical cross-border transfers are slow, storage costs are high, and authenticity verification increases the threshold for use. This makes gold more suitable as a store of value rather than a high-frequency circulation tool.

XRP emphasizes fast settlement

According to Vet, native crypto assets like Bitcoin and XRP inherit some “no single issuer” characteristics, while avoiding the transportation and delivery limitations of physical assets. Among them, the main feature of XRP is its fast transaction confirmation, allowing value to flow globally in a manner almost as fast as internet transmission.

He stated that on-chain assets are also verifiable, so users can directly confirm whether what they received is genuine XRP. This, he explained, is the core reason why he describes XRP as “gold at internet speed.”

Bridging mechanism is the key argument

The article mentioned that the XRP Ledger has a built-in automatic bridging function. This mechanism seeks the most efficient exchange path between different currencies based on market liquidity, with XRP serving as a connecting asset.

According to Vet, the reason XRP is suitable for this role is because it is viewed as a relatively neutral asset that can circulate across jurisdictions. In some markets where liquidity is dispersed and direct trading is inactive, a bridge asset can help facilitate exchanges.

He further compared this logic to the role of the US dollar in traditional finance: first holding a highly accepted intermediary asset, then converting it to GBP, EUR, JPY, or other currencies. According to this view, XRP is designed to serve a similar intermediary liquidity function in certain crypto markets.

Additional information: Vet has a direct association with the XRP Ledger ecosystem, so the article is closer to an explanation of XRP’s functionality rather than an independent research conclusion.