Kamilah Stevenson, a prominent wealth coach, has pushed back on the argument that SWIFT's decision to build a blockchain-based settlement system without XRP eliminates the need for the token's proposed cross-border liquidity role.

In the episode, she addresses what she calls one of the strongest objections facing XRP holders: if the banking messaging giant can operate with tokenized bank deposits, why would institutions need a bridge asset at all?

The question matters because SWIFT, a member-owned cooperative founded in 1973, connects more than 11,000 banks globally and remains central to international payment instructions—its network routes the messages behind payments, while the actual movement of funds still runs through correspondent banking. Stevenson says SWIFT announced in July that 17 major banks across six continents were lined up to pilot its system, including Citi, HSBC, Wells Fargo, UBS, and Standard Chartered. The pilot sits within a broader institutional turn toward tokenized money: the Bank for International Settlements' Project Agorá and the bank-backed Fnality network are separately exploring tokenized commercial-bank money for cross-border settlement, in a market where annual payment flows are measured in the trillions of dollars.

SWIFT Chose Tokenized Deposits, Not XRP

According to Kamilah Stevenson, SWIFT's platform uses a version of Ethereum and tokenized bank deposits—digital representations of conventional commercial-bank money—within a closed, bank-controlled environment. That design keeps settlement inside the existing two-tier banking system rather than on public, open networks, a recurring feature of bank-led blockchain pilots.

"It does not use XRP," she says, acknowledging that the development has been widely presented as a challenge to XRP's investment case.

Her central distinction is between moving the same currency and converting between currencies. A tokenized dollar can move more efficiently between institutions that hold tokenized dollars, she argues, but it does not independently solve the need to exchange dollars for euros, yen, or other currencies. That conversion process still requires liquidity on both sides of a transaction.

In traditional correspondent banking, institutions maintain pre-funded accounts in different jurisdictions to ensure payments can clear—a system often associated with idle capital and operational complexity.

The Bridge-Asset Pitch: A Problem Still to Be Solved?

Stevenson's case is that XRP, if adopted as designed, could reduce the need for separate liquidity pools for every currency pair. Rather than holding balances across multiple corridors, a participant could exchange local currency for a neutral bridge asset, move it quickly, and convert it into the destination currency. The pitch mirrors the role Ripple, the company most closely associated with XRP, has long promoted through its cross-border payment products, though independent visibility into how much institutional volume actually uses the token remains limited—a question that has shadowed XRP through years of debate, including Ripple's long-running legal dispute with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

"Swift's new system, as impressive as it is, does not solve it," she says of the cross-currency liquidity problem.

However, the video does not offer evidence that banks will choose XRP for that role, and SWIFT's decision to pursue tokenized deposits underscores that financial institutions may favor controlled, institution-led systems. What the pilots ultimately demonstrate about cross-currency settlement in practice—and whether institutions come to treat tokenized deposits and bridge assets as rivals or complements—remains an open question for the next phase of the debate.