When Forbes released its notorious “zombie coins” list last year, XRP sat near the top — a symbol, in the magazine’s eyes, of crypto projects that had lost direction.
Ripple, the company behind it, was painted as a struggling payment network weighed down by regulatory battles and declining relevance.
Fast forward to today, and the narrative couldn’t be more different. Forbes, once one of Ripple’s loudest critics, now describes the company’s evolution as nothing short of a “$180 billion reinvention.”
In its earlier report, Forbes accused 20 well-known altcoins — including Cardano, Litecoin, and Ethereum Classic — of showing “zombie-like” traits: limited user adoption, low on-chain activity, and uncertain business purpose. XRP’s inclusion in that list sparked outrage among supporters, who argued that Ripple’s partnerships and enterprise solutions were being ignored.
But as Ripple closed out its legal standoff with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and began acquiring smaller fintech players, even its former skeptics began to notice. Forbes now concedes that Ripple has pivoted from being “a dormant token issuer” to a full-scale financial infrastructure company operating across global markets.
According to the magazine’s latest analysis, Ripple’s turnaround stems from three key developments: legal clarity, strategic acquisitions, and institutional demand for XRP as a treasury asset. The company’s $125 million settlement with the SEC removed a lingering shadow from its operations, while corporate buyers began experimenting with XRP for cross-border settlements and digital balance-sheet management.
One of the most visible examples came from Evernorth, a firm aiming to raise over $1 billion in XRP-focused funding — signaling that traditional finance is beginning to see XRP not just as a speculative token, but as a usable liquidity instrument.
Forbes framed Ripple’s reemergence as part of a wider transformation in how blockchain assets are viewed within corporate finance. The publication said Ripple is “finally operating like a legitimate multi-billion-dollar fintech empire,” emphasizing that its recent success is rooted in execution rather than hype.
XRP’s price rally over the past twelve months — a gain of roughly 366% — pushed its market capitalization above $150 billion, reinforcing the notion that investor interest is returning. Yet, as Forbes noted, the appreciation isn’t merely speculative this time. Instead, it reflects growing integration of XRP into regulated financial systems and the emergence of new use cases linked to liquidity management and corporate treasury models.
The article also drew attention to Ripple’s evolution into a broader financial ecosystem — one that now extends beyond payments into tokenized assets, settlement infrastructure, and enterprise-grade blockchain finance. By redefining itself as a multi-layered services company rather than a token-dependent network, Ripple has managed to achieve what few blockchain projects have done: transition from controversy to credibility.
Forbes’ reversal is significant not just for Ripple but for the industry as a whole. It marks a rare moment when a mainstream financial outlet openly acknowledges a shift in perspective — from skepticism to recognition — underscoring how dynamic and self-correcting the crypto sector can be.
What was once dismissed as a “zombie project” is now being hailed as one of the most ambitious corporate turnarounds in blockchain history.
