Tom Zschach, Chief Innovation Officer at Swift, joins X's current conversation on tokenization.
Zscach is known in the XRP community for his criticism of cryptocurrencies. In previous communications, he compared the use of private tokens as “bridge currencies” to the use of fax machines, clearly casting a shadow over XRP. Zuschach also questioned the possibility of Ripple conquering the financial system, claiming that banking institutions will not use XRP tokens.
“Tokenization is not a feature upgrade,” Zuskach said in a tweet, defining it as “the moment financial institutions stop shuffling claims and start syncing truth.”
Tokenization is not a feature upgrade. That's the moment when financial institutions stop shifting their claims and start synchronizing the truth.
And Larry Fink and Rob Goldstein are right. The real change is not speed, but the ability to turn any asset into a programmable, verifiable, stable network… https://t.co/kINUT6I4Ad
— Tom Zschach (@TomZschach) December 2, 2025
Swift officials were referring to recent views from BlackRock executives on tokenization. Writing in The Economist, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and COO Rob Goldstein called tokenization “the next big evolution in market infrastructure.”
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Zscach, characteristically, did not mention XRP in his post, but his previous history with cryptocurrencies may suggest a deeper meaning to the tweet, especially when he said that tokenization is not a functional upgrade, but this is unclear.
The Multipurpose Token (MPT) upgrade went live on the XRP Ledger in October, making tokenization central to XRPL's institutional strategy and representing a step forward in how complex financial instruments can be represented on-chain.
Over the last year, the XRP Ledger (XRPL) has broken into the top chains for real world assets (RWA) as Ripple continues to expand its focus on tokenization through various partnerships.
In September, Ripple and Security Tides launched a smart contract that allows holders of BUIDL and VBILL to exchange their shares for the Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin.
BlackRock's USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) and VanEck's Treasury Fund, Ltd. (VBILL) are both the first tokenized funds issued on a public blockchain. This move provided additional stablecoin off-ramps for BUIDL and VBILL tokenized short-term treasury funds.
