Ripple CEO on Crypto: ‘I Have So Much Optimism for 2026’

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has participated in the XRP Australia 2026 hackathon as a keynote speaker. During his speech on stage, he expressed strong optimism regarding crypto and its likely legal status in 2026.

Garlinghouse has “so much optimism for 2026”

During his public talk during the aforementioned event that is taking place in Sydney, Australia, Feb. 27-28, Garlinghouse shared his joy at how many crypto users and advocates in the U.S, in particular, and around the world in general, help create an exponential impact for crypto.

He highlighted this progress that has been building up quickly, saying that it is not happening thanks to certain single crypto advocates or influencers but to thousands of them scattered around the globe.

“There’s not one switch. It’s a hundred switches. It’s a thousand switches,” Garlinghouse proudly stated, adding that it is all building up bit by bit until it “does have an exponential impact” on the expansion and the legalization of crypto. He pointed out that this may sometimes take longer than usual, but then “we have made so much progress” as “we see more and more of these switches flip.”

This is the reason, the Ripple CEO said, why he has “so much optimism for 2026 and beyond.” He praised the audience of the hackathon for being one of those “flip switches” as well as audiences in other countries on the world tour he is making at the moment. These “switches” help debunk the FUD and misinformation about crypto and Ripple and XRP, in particular.

Eventually, Garlinghouse called that a culmination of a decade of hard work — that these “switches” have finally begun flipping in favor of crypto.

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JP Morgan’s bullish prediction

According to Bloomberg, banking giant JP Morgan believes that crypto markets may get “a meaningful lift” in the second half of 2026, even though crypto market sentiment remains quite low.

The trigger for this lift could be the likely passage of the Clarity Act, which is about providing regulatory clarity for crypto and ending “regulation by enforcement” employed by the SEC before January 2025. If the act is passed, JP Morgan analysts say, “it will reshape the market.”

Patrick Witt, from the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, commented on that article in Bloomberg with one word: “Interesting.”