XRP Ledger developer Panos Mekras has spotlighted a successful liquidity incentive program for Ripple USD (RLUSD) on the XRPL DEX, while revealing his own similar proposal was disregarded by Ripple in 2025. The program, spearheaded by First Ledger, offers a 12.8% APR reward for users providing liquidity to the XRP/RLUSD pool.
In less than 24 hours, the initiative attracted nearly $500,000 in XRP liquidity, demonstrating rapid market response. Mekras commended the effort on social media, stating, "This is a great incentive program by @First_Ledger. Almost $500K of liquidity added in a few days." He then revealed that he and his team had proposed an identical bootstrap plan to Ripple last year to increase volumes and liquidity on the DEX, but the idea was largely dismissed.
Despite this early success, Mekras used the occasion to highlight the XRP Ledger's significant lag in broader DeFi adoption. Ethereum dominates with a Total Value Locked (TVL) of over $52.8 billion, compared to XRPL's TVL of less than $47 million. The ledger also underperforms in other key metrics like fee generation and active addresses.
To address this gap, Mekras argues for more aggressive ecosystem support from Ripple Labs. He believes that with one billion XRP earmarked for the community and its builders, deployed through targeted grants and coordinated incentives, there could be a "significant change" in the ecosystem's trajectory. He positions developer grants as a critical first step for XRPL to gain market share and improve its lagging DeFi metrics.
