The XRP Ledger (XRPL) has secured a dominant position in the issuance of tokenized U.S. Treasury bills, holding approximately 63% of the total supply, according to data from RWA.xyz. This significant share underscores XRPL's growing role as a primary ledger for real-world asset (RWA) tokenization. However, a stark contrast exists between issuance and trading activity. Despite holding the majority of tokens like OpenEden's TBILL, on-chain transfer volume on XRPL remains minimal. The active trading and settlement of these tokenized Treasuries continue to be concentrated on Ethereum and its layer-2 networks, which offer more developed liquidity.
This divide raises questions about XRPL's ability to compete as a full-stack platform for RWAs. While its built-in compliance tools and near-instant settlement are attractive for regulated issuance, the network has yet to capture significant trading activity. In a parallel development highlighting institutional interest, major financial firms including Mastercard, BlackRock, and Franklin Templeton are in a technical evaluation phase of the XRP Ledger. As confirmed by XRPL Commons' Director of Corporate Adoption, Odelia Torteman, the evaluation focuses on using XRPL for international payments, transaction settlement, and asset issuance to replace legacy infrastructure, aiming for faster, cheaper, and verifiable transfers.
Ripple has facilitated this institutional exploration by removing technical barriers for bank integration. Furthermore, the network's payment volume recently reached 1.88 million real transactions, with XRP serving as a bridge currency to reduce the need for prefunded accounts in cross-border payments. In the tokenization space, Aviva Investors has entered a multi-year partnership with Ripple to tokenize traditional fund structures on XRPL, aiming to move from experimentation to large-scale operations within the decade, though no live products have launched yet.
