Banks Love Ripple? Sirer Drops the Ultimate April Fools Bait-and-Switch

Emin Gün Sirer has never been the type to skip a chance to throw digital shade, and this April Fools' Day was absolutely no exception. The Ava Labs chief apparently decided that nothing says "holiday spirit" quite like a provocative post designed to make Ripple's Twitter mentions absolutely lose their minds for a solid 20 minutes before the punchline landed.

"Banks are choosing Ripple. April Fools, obviously. They actually use Avalanche."

The post promptly caught fire, amassing 585 likes and coasting past 50,000 views. Apparently the internet has a soft spot for blockchain beef disguised as holiday mischief. Ripple's faithful were, predictably, summoned to the comments section like moths to a particularly controversial flame.

"April fools to you. Ripple is at the center of the entire banking system," shot back one particularly committed supporter.

Meanwhile, the rest of the timeline just kicked back and enjoyed the show. Because when has crypto Twitter ever passed up a chance to watch a good old-fashioned ecosystem slapfight? Nobody comes to crypto for the peace and quiet anyway.

Sirer, to be fair, has been loading ammunition at Ripple for years. Back in 2018, he casually dropped the take that "everything Ripple can do, Tether can do just as well"—which, honestly, is the kind of comparison that makes you pause and think perhaps everyone involved was a little too confident that year. More recently, he treated Ripple's first stablecoin announcement with the enthusiasm of someone receiving a participation ribbon: "Yay for Ripple, please head this way to collect their participation trophy."

Two different visions

Ripple, the San Francisco payments outfit behind $XRP, built its empire on cross-border settlement and liquidity provisioning through its On-Demand Liquidity service—basically convincing traditional banks that blockchain isn't just for people who can't spell "regulation." Avalanche, under the Ava Labs banner, went hard on enterprise tokenization, DeFi protocols, and customizable subnet architectures with sub-second finality because apparently waiting even two seconds for a transaction is just unacceptable in today's instant-gratification economy.

Both companies have found themselves among the 100+ crypto-native firms and financial institutions cozying up to Mastercard's new Crypto Partner Program, which is basically the traditional finance world awkwardly trying to hold hands with the on-chain crowd without making it too obvious.

By the numbers

As of March 2026, Ripple sits at a market cap hovering around $50 billion, fueled by a $750 million share buyback program that basically screams "we have too much money and nowhere cool to put it." The company has cultivated relationships with more than 300 financial institutions worldwide—including heavy hitters like SBI Holdings, BNY Mellon, Santander, PNC Bank, and CIBC, because apparently every major bank needed a blockchain pivot eventually.

Ava Labs, meanwhile, holds a $5.25 billion valuation, and Avalanche's real-world asset (RWA) total value locked exploded 950% in 2025 to crack the $2 billion threshold. That's the kind of growth that makes traditional finance types suddenly remember they have spreadsheets to update. The network boasts over 4,500 TPS with sub-second finality, and counts JPMorgan,