Ripple President Monica Long: XRP Is 'The Main Character' Now
Key Takeaways
- •Ripple President Monica Long told the MERGE São Paulo conference in Brazil that the company remains committed to its founding "Internet of Value" vision and positioned Ripple as a leading provider for enterprises and institutions.
- •Ripple holds more than 75 licenses worldwide, which Long presented as the product of a compliance-first strategy that lets the company offer end-to-end digital asset lifecycle management under one roof.
- •Santiment reported that bearish XRP commentary across Reddit, X, and Telegram reached its most extreme level in three months, even as activity on the XRP Ledger increased.
- •XRP was trading around $0.99 at the time of publication, down from its $3.65 all-time high set a year earlier after Ripple's landmark court victory against the U.S. SEC.
Ripple Labs has spent years building institutional partnerships and acquiring licenses across the globe. Speaking in a keynote address at this year's edition of MERGE São Paulo, a technology conference held annually in Brazil, Ripple President Monica Long doubled down on the company's founding ambition to create the "Internet of Value" — taking the stage at a moment when the token at the heart of Ripple's ecosystem is weathering one of its most socially bearish stretches of the year.
Monica Long Positions XRP Infrastructure as an Enterprise Favorite
Long cast Ripple as "the main character" when it comes to serving enterprises and institutions — borrowing internet slang for whoever dominates the cultural moment and repurposing it for the corporate side of crypto. Ripple, the blockchain payments company associated with the XRP token, has built a compliance-first culture from the ground up and now holds more than 75 licenses worldwide. The president framed that regulatory footprint as a key competitive edge, saying it allows the company to deliver "the whole end-to-end digital asset life-cycle management all under one roof." In her framing, that combination positions Ripple — and the XRP Ledger ecosystem it champions — at the center of the institutional digital asset story.
That licensing tally is more than a scoreboard. Banks and payment providers exploring blockchain-based settlement typically need licensed, regulated counterparties across jurisdictions — and that is the bar Ripple says its slower, compliance-first build-out was designed to clear.
Monica says Ripple wants to enable an "internet of value, calls Ripple a main character in serving institutions, highlights 75+ licenses, and says Ripple can provide the full digital-asset lifecycle under one roof. pic.twitter.com/s2qcmjVo9c — 𝗕𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗫𝗥𝗣 (@BankXRP) August 16, 2026
Long acknowledged that the compliance-first path is "the hard way," but insisted it is nevertheless "the right way to do it." The Internet of Value vision has been part of Ripple's identity from day one: when the XRP Ledger launched roughly 13 years ago, the central idea was to make value move across the web as fast and as easily as information does. More than a decade on, the ambition is unchanged; what has grown is the regulatory footprint behind it.
XRP Sentiment Tumbles as Social Negativity Hits a Three-Month High
Long's MERGE São Paulo remarks surfaced during one of the most socially bearish stretches for XRP this year — a backdrop that sharpens the contrast between Ripple's enterprise pitch and the mood of the token's retail crowd. Blockchain intelligence platform Santiment, which aggregates social and on-chain data, has reported an extreme level of "FUD" across Reddit, Crypto Twitter (X), and Telegram. Extreme bearish crowd sentiment of this kind has often preceded a bounce-back rally in the past, as the general trend tends to move against the crowd.
Santiment's post also points to a divergence: even as negativity peaked, ledger activity was climbing — usage on the network moving one way while crowd chatter moved the other.
XRP social negativity hits three-month high as ledger activity climbs Santiment tracked bearish ripple:native commentary across X, Reddit, and Telegram. Sentiment hit its most extreme level in three months this week, with the token slipping back to around $1.00. On-chain… pic.twitter.com/c0bsaelxdk — BSCN (@BSCNews) August 15, 2026
The post has generated over 1,000 likes and a mixed set of replies, with some users praising Ripple's value proposition while others express skepticism about long-promised price impacts on XRP — skepticism aimed at the gap between Ripple's institutional wins and demand for the token itself.
At the time of publication, XRP's price was hovering around $0.99 — a steep drop from the $3.65 all-time high the veteran altcoin posted a year ago, following Ripple's landmark legal victory versus the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). That slide is the backdrop against which Long's "main character" claim lands: infrastructure and licensing momentum on one side, crowd sentiment and price on the other.