Ripple's Senior Executive Officer for the Middle East and Africa, Reece Merrick, has unveiled four major infrastructure upgrades aimed at revolutionizing global financial rails by bringing cross-border payments, custody, tokenization, and prime brokerage fully on-chain. These enhancements are designed to position the XRP Ledger as a central platform for faster, cheaper, and more unified transactions, leveraging XRP and the Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin.
Merrick emphasized in a public statement, "The digital future demands unified infrastructure, not piecemeal solutions, and Ripple is building the systems that will enable global finance to go on-chain." This initiative is backed by Ripple's nearly $4 billion investment in the crypto ecosystem through strategic acquisitions and partnerships, including six acquisitions over the past two years in payments, custody, and stablecoins. Earlier in 2025, the company integrated stablecoin infrastructure firm Rail to enhance Ripple Payments as a full-service cross-border platform.
Analysts project that these upgrades could drive bullish momentum for XRP, with potential price increases of 20–30% in the coming quarter, supported by over 300 banking partnerships and pilot programs in the Middle East. However, risks such as delays in custody integration, tokenization growth, or regulatory pressure from entities like the SEC may cause short-term volatility. Ripple's engineering team, including Head Ayo Akinyele and CTO David Schwartz, is also exploring native staking mechanisms on the XRP Ledger to further boost utility.
