In a lengthy social media post, David Schwartz, chief technology officer at Ripple, stated that "the crypto tent is only getting bigger" in response to other players in the realm of payments and stablecoins launching their own blockchains. This, according to Schwartz, shows that blockchains are now viewed as "core financial infrastructure." XRPL's 13-year edge Schwartz has stressed that the XRP Ledger has gained "real traction" over the past 13 years. "The XRPL has real traction and institutional adoption because it’s been battle-tested, updated, and improved upon for well over a decade," he stressed. He further noted that the XRPL network is public and permissionless, but it also has some optional permissioned features. This, of course, sets it apart from some other blockchains that are specifically built with permissioned validator sets. Schwartz previously stated that Ripple has no control over the XRPL since the company directly operates only a tiny portion of the network's validators. However, it should be noted that some critics previously pointed out that the lion's share of other validators tend to be Ripple-adjacent, meaning that they are parents, universities or organizations that have links to the company. In his most recent post, Schwartz says that decentralization vs. centralization is constantly being debated. Circle's latest move Schwartz's latest post comes after Circle, Ripple's archrival, announced the launch of its own layer-1 (L1) blockchain earlier this week. The new EVM-compatible network, which has been dubbed "Ark," is meant to boost its stablecoin ecosystem. Ark is expected to enter private tests in the near future.