Brad Garlinghouse is not a quiet man when he sees a win on the horizon. Honestly, if you’ve followed the Ripple vs. SEC saga for the last few years, you know the vibe. It was a long, expensive, and frankly exhausting legal cage match. But as we sit here in early 2026, the mood has shifted from "survival mode" to something much more aggressive.
The Ripple CEO bullish crypto policy stance isn’t just about hype or trying to pump XRP. It’s a strategic read on a Washington D.C. that finally stopped treating blockchain like a basement-dwelling criminal enterprise.
"The ship has sailed," Garlinghouse said recently. He basically believes the era of "regulation by enforcement"—the Gary Gensler special—is dead.
The $180,000 Prediction and the Policy Tailwinds
At a recent industry event, Garlinghouse dropped a bombshell: he expects Bitcoin to hit $180,000 by the end of 2026.
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That’s a huge number.
But why is he so confident? It’s not just the Bitcoin halving cycle or the technical charts. It’s the policy. For years, the U.S. was the "black hole" of crypto regulation. While Dubai, Singapore, and the UK were building frameworks, the U.S. was busy sending subpoenas. Now, with the passage of the CLARITY Act and the emergence of a pro-innovation SEC under new leadership, the brakes are off.
Garlinghouse argues that the U.S. represents roughly 22% of global GDP. For a long time, that 22% was effectively locked out of the crypto market because institutions were too scared of getting sued.
You've got to realize how big that is.
If you unlock the American institutional vault, you aren't just adding "some" liquidity. You are fundamentally changing the floor price of every major digital asset. This is why the Ripple CEO bullish crypto policy narrative has become the cornerstone of the current market cycle.
Moving Past the SEC's "War on Crypto"
The 2025 settlement between Ripple and the SEC was a turning point. Ripple walked away with a $125 million fine—a drop in the bucket compared to the $2 billion the SEC originally wanted—and, more importantly, they got the "programmatic sales are not securities" ruling to stick.
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The SEC dropped its appeal in March 2025.
That was the white flag.
Since then, Ripple has been on an absolute tear. They didn't just sit on their hands; they went on a $4 billion acquisition spree. They bought Hidden Road to become a massive non-bank prime broker. They applied for a U.S. national bank charter. They launched RippleUSD (RLUSD).
None of this happens if the policy environment is still hostile.
Garlinghouse has been very vocal about the fact that Ripple would never have done the Hidden Road deal under the old regime. It would have made zero sense. Why buy a broker in a country where the regulator won't let you sign new customers? Now, the strategy is "crawl, then walk, then run."
Why 2026 is the Real "Tipping Point"
People keep asking why 2026 is the magic year. Garlinghouse points to a few specific things:
- ETF Maturation: 2024 was about Bitcoin ETFs. 2025 was the year of Ethereum and eventually XRP ETFs. By 2026, these products will be fully integrated into retirement accounts and pension funds.
- The CLARITY Act: This legislation, which is finally providing a path for "mature" blockchains to be treated as commodities, removes the existential threat of being labeled an unregistered security.
- Institutional Infrastructure: It's not just about speculation anymore. Ripple is now seeing 14% of SWIFT’s payment volume as a realistic target for the XRP Ledger.
It’s kinda wild to think about.
For a decade, we talked about "institutional adoption" as this mythical beast that was always "six months away." Well, look around. Eight out of ten major U.S. banks are now offering some form of crypto service. The "genie" is officially out of the bottle.
The Counter-Argument: Is the Optimism Overbaked?
Look, we have to be realistic. Even with a Ripple CEO bullish crypto policy outlook, the market isn't a straight line up.
XRP has struggled to hold the $2.00 level consistently, even with the ETF inflows. Some analysts, like those at Standard Chartered, see $8.00 as a target for 2026. Others think $3.00 is more realistic.
There's also the risk of "sell the news." We saw it after the 2024 election—a massive pump followed by a "cooling off" period where the market realized that passing laws actually takes time. Washington moves at the speed of a snail, even when it’s being "friendly."
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Actionable Steps for Navigating This Shift
If you’re trying to position yourself for the 2026 cycle Garlinghouse is talking about, here’s how to look at it:
- Follow the "Clarity" Assets: Focus on assets that have survived the regulatory gauntlet. XRP, BTC, and ETH now have a "legal moat" that newer, unvetted tokens don't have.
- Watch the ETF Inflows: Don't just look at the price. Look at the "Net Asset Value" (NAV) of the spot ETFs. Steady inflows, even during flat price action, suggest long-term institutional accumulation.
- Monitor the Stablecoin Legislation: The next big fight is over who can issue dollar-pegged tokens. If Ripple’s RLUSD gets broad adoption, it creates a massive "burn" mechanism for XRP via transaction fees.
- Ignore the Noise, Watch the Policy: Headlines change daily. Legislation lasts decades. The fact that the Federal Reserve sunset its "Novel Activities" program in late 2025 and moved crypto back to "standard supervision" is a way bigger deal than any single tweet.
The bottom line is that the U.S. has stopped trying to kill crypto and started trying to tax and regulate it. For Brad Garlinghouse, that’s all the "green light" he ever needed.