Ripple pushes XRPL into $10B private credit market with RLUSD loans

Ripple is moving XRPL into institutional private credit, pairing native lending tools with RLUSD loans to capture a slice of the $10 billion tokenized credit market.

Ripple is bringing institutional private credit to the XRP Ledger, targeting a $10 billion market with RLUSD-denominated loans built on native lending tools. The initiative, announced Aug. 20, pairs Ripple with Clearpool Finance and Cicada Partners to fund working capital for fintechs, payment companies and crypto service providers.

"We're excited to announce a new collaboration with Ripple, Cicada and Clearpool to bring institutional-grade credit to XRPL," Cicada Partners said in a statement, combining Clearpool's lending infrastructure with Cicada's credit expertise and borrower pipeline.

The partners argue most DeFi yield is generated by crypto market activity rather than productive lending, estimating roughly 98 percent of yield comes from looping, arbitrage, basis trades, points and liquidity mining. Clearpool has facilitated more than $930 million in institutional loans since 2021, while Cicada brings more than $860 million in credit underwriting experience. Ripple will participate as a limited partner alongside other institutions on a pari passu basis, with no special backstop role.

All lending operations run on XRPL, requiring XRP tokens for transaction fees and wallet reserves, expanding the token's utility. The lending logic is integrated into the base protocol through the XLS-65 (Single Asset Vaults) and XLS-66 (Lending Protocol) amendments, avoiding third-party smart contracts.

RLUSD anchors the credit layer

RLUSD, the regulated stablecoin overseen by the New York Department of Financial Services and held at the Bank of New York, will be the underlying credit asset. Compliance tools including Permissioned Domains, Credentials and Clawback let institutions impose eligibility and asset controls, while the protocol itself does not impose fixed application-level fees.

Validator vote decides mainnet launch

Clearpool is developing and testing the integration on XRPL Devnet, with a technical demo planned to show the lending process from pool creation through repayment. The Lending Protocol and Single Asset Vault amendments are undergoing community voting, and independent XRPL validators must approve and activate XLS-65 and XLS-66 before full deployment on mainnet.

The move comes as XRP posts its strongest weekly gain since the 2024 US election, climbing above $1.10 as Bitcoin's $2.7 billion short squeeze lifted the broader market. Whales added 190 million coins in a single day, and nearly 1.9 million daily transactions support the network. If validators approve the amendments, XRPL could attract institutional capital flows into private credit, deepening demand for both XRP and RLUSD.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.