Banks Love Ripple? Sirer Drops the April Fools Switcheroo on XRP Loyalists

Ava Labs CEO Emin Gün Sirer decided that April 1st was the perfect day to remind the cryptoverse which blockchain banks actually call when they need serious enterprise-grade plumbing. The result? A masterclass in timing that sent XRP maximalists into a collective meltdown spiral.

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

The post blew up to 585 likes and 50,000+ views—apparently people enjoy watching tribal warfare as much as they enjoy the memes. Who knew telling the truth on April 1st could generate such engagement?

The replies descended into chaos faster than a degen chasing a 3x pump. "April fools to you. Ripple is at the center of the entire banking system," shot back one True Believer, as if a payments company being central to payments somehow disproves the joke. Others just showed up for the memes—because that's how April 1st works in crypto: half the timeline is joking, the other half genuinely can't tell the difference anymore.

Sirer has history with Ripple, and that history involves sharp elbows. The man once noted that Tether can do "everything Ripple can do," which, given USDT's market cap and adoption, is kind of like saying a sledgehammer can do everything a scalpel can do—and it also comes with a nice handle for swinging. He's also publicly dismissed XRP's first stablecoin announcement as a participation trophy while bigger DeFi ecosystems are running on multiple stablecoins like it's a competitive sport.

But here's where Sirer decided to draw the line between vibes and actual enterprise infrastructure.

Scale vs. Speed

Ripple, the San Francisco payments firm behind $XRP, has spent years building its empire on cross-border settlement and its On-Demand Liquidity service. The company has quietly accumulated a Rolodex of 300+ financial institutions including SBI Holdings, BNY Mellon, Santander, PNC Bank, and CIBC. As of March 2026, Ripple sits at a $50 billion valuation, backed by a $750 million share buyback program that basically says "we have money, please stop asking questions."

Avalanche, developed by Ava Labs, has bet big on institutional tokenization and enterprise