A 2021 Citibank document has sparked a fresh round of debate around XRP after researcher Jesse of Apex Crypto Insights highlighted an apparent change in terminology — from “Regulated Internet of Value” to “Regulated Liability Network” — which he says may have been made because the original phrasing made a link to Ripple too obvious.
Jesse’s argument combines that wording change with XRP’s long-running price behavior. He points out the token hit $3.84 during the 2018 bull market and climbed to about $3.60 earlier in this cycle, yet has otherwise spent years trading in a narrow range while Bitcoin and other assets moved much higher. That divergence, he says, is difficult to reconcile with ordinary market dynamics and could be evidence of suppression — though he stresses this is his interpretation, not proof.
At the heart of Jesse’s thesis is a broader vision of XRP’s role: not merely a retail crypto, but part of an “internet of value.” He ties this idea to Ripple’s Interledger Protocol, which aims to route value across different ledgers the way the internet routes data. From there he traces a paper trail through institutional commentary. According to Jesse, Citibank’s Tony McLaughlin has described the “Regulated Liability Network” as essentially the same concept as a shared ledger, and the Bank for International Settlements has discussed the possibility of a unified ledger that could supplant correspondent banking and even SWIFT.
The implication Jesse draws is logical: if major banks are preparing or planning a new settlement layer, any asset intended to serve as a reserve or settlement medium would need price stability. That, he argues, could provide an incentive to limit extreme price swings in an asset tied to such a system.
It’s important to emphasize Jesse does not produce hard evidence of coordinated market manipulation. His case rests on interpretation of language in institutional documents, historical price patterns, and how those elements might fit together. The theory remains unresolved — intriguing and plausible to some, but not conclusive without more direct proof.
In short, the Citibank phrasing change and XRP’s muted price action have reignited the debate over whether the token’s role could extend beyond payments into broader financial infrastructure — and, if so, what that would mean for how its market behaves going forward.
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