Monica Long: How Ripple’s Quiet Force Is Redrawing Crypto’s Map
Ripple’s Monica Long isn’t chasing headlines—she’s quietly building crypto’s future. From payments to tokenization, here’s how she’s reshaping finance from the inside.
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When the storm clouds gathered over the crypto industry, Monica Long didn’t flinch. She helped build the shelters. In an industry driven by volatility, hype cycles, and flameouts, Long stands out for something radical: calm, consistent execution.
As President of Ripple, she has helped the company achieve what few crypto startups could: resilience. Under her leadership, Ripple not only survived the crypto winter but grew stronger, expanded globally, launched new products, and even scored a historic legal victory against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
But her story isn’t just about corporate success. It’s about reshaping how crypto integrates into the financial system—and proving that real utility, not just speculation, is the future.
From PR Hustler to Crypto Architect
Long’s road to Ripple wasn’t an obvious one. She started her career in communications, working with emerging tech companies. But in 2013, as Bitcoin was just beginning to creep into mainstream headlines, she made a pivot—and a bet—by joining Ripple Labs.
At Ripple, Long wore many hats.
- She led marketing.
- She shaped strategy.
- She bridged the often-messy gap between engineers, financiers, and regulators.
What set her apart was her instinct: she didn’t chase hype. She focused on building trust.
Over the next decade, as others flamed out in regulatory firestorms or speculative booms and busts, Long quietly rose through the ranks—culminating in her appointment as President in 2023.
She understood early that crypto needed to solve real-world problems to survive. That’s what made her indispensable,
one former colleague noted.
The Woman Behind Ripple’s Biggest Wins
If there’s a single invention that captures Long’s impact, it’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL). In 2018, when the idea of using a digital asset for real-time global payments still sounded outlandish, Long pushed it into production.
ODL uses XRP to instantly bridge currencies, eliminating the need for pre-funded foreign accounts. A Thai worker in Japan can send money home in seconds—with almost no friction. By 2022, ODL powered over 60% of all RippleNet transactions.
Long calls seeing the first ODL transactions “one of the most emotional moments of my career.” She wasn't just moving money faster; she was connecting lives faster.
Her fingerprints are also on RippleNet’s massive global expansion. Under Long’s strategic leadership, Ripple built a network of hundreds of financial institutions across 70+ countries, securing regulatory licenses in over 30 jurisdictions. When crypto markets imploded in 2022, Ripple posted record customer growth.
Others focused on marketing. Monica focused on markets,
said an industry analyst.
It worked.
Weathering the SEC Storm
Long’s poise was tested during Ripple’s fiercest battle: the SEC lawsuit that threatened to categorize XRP as a security—and potentially derail Ripple’s business.
Rather than retreat, Long became one of Ripple’s public faces.
- She spoke at conferences.
- She reassured customers.
- She steadied Ripple’s teams through three years of uncertainty.
The result? In July 2023, a federal judge ruled that XRP itself is not a security—a landmark win not just for Ripple, but for the entire U.S. crypto industry.
Insiders credit Long with helping Ripple not just survive the lawsuit, but emerge stronger, with expanded operations in Asia-Pacific, Europe, and Latin America. As the dust settled, she had won something rarer than a court victory: the trust of an entire industry.
What She’s Building Now
As Ripple’s President, Long isn’t coasting on past wins. She’s deep in the trenches of the company’s next chapter.
First, she's unifying Ripple’s payment offerings. Ripple Payments now combines through one integration:
- cross-border settlement,
- liquidity sourcing,
- custody,
- compliance.
Companies can move money globally, hold crypto assets, and tap decentralized liquidity without needing to become crypto experts themselves.
Second, she's betting big on stablecoins. Ripple’s new dollar-pegged stablecoin, RLUSD, already has a market cap nearing $300 million. It’s not aimed at retail speculation, but at corporate treasury operations and cross-border trades—use cases demanding reliability, not hype.
Third, she’s leading Ripple’s foray into tokenization. In partnerships with banks like Société Générale Forge, Ripple is building the rails to let institutions mint tokenized stocks, bonds, and real estate directly onto the XRP Ledger.
The goal, Long says, isn’t to disrupt banks. It’s to “stitch together” the old financial system with the new. Quietly, methodically, she’s turning Ripple from a payments company into a full-spectrum financial infrastructure platform.
She’s scaling while others are scrambling,
one fintech executive observed.
Eyes on the Future
Is Ripple going public? Long doesn’t rule it out. But she’s in no rush.
We don’t need the cash. We don’t need the spotlight,
she said recently.
Instead, Ripple is playing a longer game: more acquisitions, more licenses, more expansion into underserved regions. Long is steering Ripple to be indispensable infrastructure in the coming tokenized economy.
There’s talk of an XRP ETF on the horizon. There’s growing U.S. engagement, now that legal clarity has returned. There’s even a movement toward using the XRP Ledger for tokenized Treasury bonds—an idea that would have sounded insane just five years ago.
And while the media loves to focus on Ripple’s corporate deals, Long hasn’t forgotten the people's side of crypto. She jokes about owning “a fraction of a Banksy” thanks to NFTs, and remains a champion of making blockchain usable for everyone, not just institutions.
But make no mistake: her primary focus is on moving billions across borders, settling trades in seconds, and bringing crypto’s invisible plumbing to the world’s financial bloodstream.
The Ripple Effect
In an industry addicted to boom-and-bust drama, Monica Long is the rare executive playing the long game. She doesn’t chase the next shiny thing. She builds—carefully, strategically, and with a view toward decades, not quarters.
If the crypto economy is to become a real part of global finance, it needs builders like her: grounded, ambitious, and unswayed by the noise.
As Ripple enters its second decade—and as the next era of tokenized finance takes shape—it’s clear that Monica Long isn’t just riding the wave.
She’s making it.
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