Ava Labs CEO says banks love Ripple, then hits April Fools

From Polygon to Polymarket, crypto communities have their own way of pulling off April Fool’s Day stunts.

This year, Ava Labs CEO Emin Gün Sirer couldn’t resist giving Ripple a friendly jab.

The post racked up 585 likes and more than 50,000 views as of reporting. Its comment section exploded with hundreds of responses, many from Ripple’s community who came for the fastest bait-and-switch and stayed for the debate.

Some showed up for the memes, because it’s that kind of day.

April Fools rolls around once a year, but Sirer has long taken a critical look at Ripple.

The two platforms

Ripple, the San Francisco-based payments firm behind the XRP token, has built its business around cross-border settlement and liquidity provisioning through its On-Demand Liquidity service.

Avalanche, developed by Ava Labs, has focused on enterprise tokenization, decentralized finance, and customizable subnet architectures with sub-second transaction finality.

Both Ripple and Ava Labs are among more than 100 crypto-native companies and financial institutions joining Mastercard’s new Crypto Partner Program.

The initiative focuses on bridging on-chain innovation with existing payment systems, enabling enterprise and institutional use cases such as cross-border transfers, payouts, and settlements.

Ripple’s scale, Avalanche’s speed

As of March 2026, Ripple is valued at approximately $50 billion, driven by a $750 million share buyback program.

The company connects more than 300 financial institutions across the globe for cross-border payments. Standout partners include SBI Holdings, BNY Mellon, Santander, PNC Bank, and CIBC.

Meanwhile, Ava Labs holds a $5.25 billion valuation, with the Avalanche network spearheading institutional tokenization.

Supporting over 4,500 TPS and sub-second finality, Avalanche saw its real-world asset (RWA) total value locked surge 950% in 2025 to surpass $2 billion.

Ava Labs and Avalanche have secured partnerships with top institutions in blockchain, gaming, and tokenized assets. Prominent collaborators are JPMorgan, Citi, KKR, Apollo, and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

This month, Animoca Brands announced its investment in Ava Labs to drive growth in Asia and the Middle East.

Token performance

Like other digital assets, XRP and AVAX, Avalanche’s native asset, have fallen sharply amid the ongoing market downturn.

XRP dropped roughly 27% in the first quarter of 2026 and was trading at $1.35 at press time, down 63% from its all-time high set last July, per CoinGecko.

AVAX fell 25% in Q1 and now sits above $9, down 94% from its peak during the last bull run.