Rob Cunningham: The Interledger Protocol
Rob Cunningham: The Interledger Protocol
5-13-2026
Over the next 30 years, ILP-connected RWA value flows could plausibly process ~400 trillion to 1+ quadrillion transactions, representing roughly $400 quadrillion to multiple quintillions in gross routed value.
Imagine trying to explain email to the world in 1993.
Back then, most people still used fax machines, filing cabinets, stamps, overnight envelopes, and long-distance phone calls. Information moved slowly, expensively, and through gatekeepers.
Then TCP/IP quietly arrived.
At first, hardly anyone noticed.
People mocked it.
Businesses ignored it.
Governments barely understood it.
And yet beneath the surface, something civilization-changing had happened:
Information had been liberated from distance.
Suddenly, a message no longer cared whether it traveled across the street or across the planet. The internet became a neutral highway where information could move instantly between different systems, different companies, different countries, and different people.
The result?
An explosion beyond comprehension.
Not millions of messages.
Not billions.
Quadrillions.
Emails.
Videos.
Photos.
Contracts.
Livestreams.
Searches.
Cloud computing.
AI.
Entire digital economies.
The internet did not merely improve communication.
It became the nervous system of civilization itself.
Now imagine humanity standing at that same moment again…
…but this time for VALUE.
For money.
For assets.
For ownership.
For settlement.
For trust.
For economic energy itself.
That is what the Interledger Protocol represents.
ILP is not “another crypto project.”
It is the idea that value can move the way information now moves.
Instantly.
Globally.
Neutrally.
Interoperably.
A world where stocks, currencies, bonds, commodities, real estate, invoices, royalties, carbon credits, AI agent payments, machine commerce, gaming assets, and tokenized property all become digitally routable – like emails crossing the internet.
Today, moving value across the world still resembles the pre-internet era:
Wire transfers.
Clearing delays.
Settlement windows.
Middlemen.
Currency silos.
Nostro/Vostro traps.
Batch processing.
Business hours.
Geographic friction.
Humanity still moves money like it’s 1985.
ILP changes that.
It turns value into a stream.
And in that world, XRP becomes something radically different than what most people currently imagine.
Not merely a speculative token.
But a universal bridge.
A neutral liquidity engine sitting between every disconnected financial island on earth.
Just as TCP/IP allowed every computer network to speak a common language, XRP allows value itself to bridge between currencies, systems, ledgers, institutions, nations, and tokenized assets without requiring everyone to surrender sovereignty into one centralized empire.
That distinction is everything.
Because the future will NOT run on one bank.
One nation.
One currency.
One monopoly.
It will run on interoperability.
And interoperability requires a bridge.
Over the next 30 years, humanity will likely tokenize and digitally route more value than all previous generations combined.
• Machines paying machines
• AI agents negotiating commerce
• Streaming micropayments
• Instant securities settlement
• Global real estate tokenization
• 24/7 capital markets
• Frictionless cross-border trade
• Autonomous economic coordination
Not millions.
Not billions.
Quadrillions to Quintrillions of dollars in routed value flow.
And if TCP/IP transformed the movement of information into the largest communication explosion in history…
Then ILP, XRPL, and XRP may ultimately represent the monetization layer of a civilization where value itself finally moves at the speed of light.
if XRP/XRPL becomes even a narrow neutral liquidity bridge for a meaningful slice of that flow, the valuation implications become structurally enormous.
Source(s):
• https://x.com/KuwlShow/status/2054310608036823456
https://dinarchronicles.com/2026/05/13/rob-cunningham-the-interledger-protocol/