XRP's relationship with banks has long been misunderstood, splitting into two distinct narratives: banks using the XRP Ledger (XRPL) as settlement infrastructure, and banks utilizing the XRP token itself. As of July 2026, Ripple has signed over 300 banks through RippleNet, though the vast majority leverage its messaging layer for faster fiat transfers without touching XRP. However, a growing number of institutions are building on the XRPL for tokenization and stablecoin settlement, largely bypassing the token except for negligible network fees.
The token's utility lies in On-Demand Liquidity (ODL), where a smaller cohort of firms like SBI Holdings, Alloy Networks, and Bitso actually run validator nodes and transact in XRP for cross-border remittances. Meanwhile, the XRPL's public infrastructure has seen $4 billion in tokenized real-world assets across 291 projects by mid-2026, a sharp rise from $2.3 billion in February. A landmark cross-border redemption of a tokenized U.S. Treasury fund — conducted by JPMorgan, Mastercard, and Ondo Finance — settled in under five seconds using Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin, with XRP merely covering the network fee. Ripple further bolstered the ledger's privacy with zero-knowledge proof technology via RISC Zero's Boundless network.
Regulatory clarity has also advanced. The SEC lawsuit concluded in 2025, and in March 2026 regulators jointly classified XRP as a digital commodity. The CLARITY Act aims to make this permanent, with a Senate floor vote expected in late July or early August. Ripple secured full MiCA authorization in the EU on July 6, and joined the Open USD consortium alongside Visa, Mastercard, and BlackRock. However, institutional interest is not unilateral — Goldman Sachs liquidated approximately $154 million in XRP ETF holdings.
Adding a new dimension, Ripple's acquisition of Hidden Road for $1.25 billion transformed into Ripple Prime, which officially entered the National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC) directory on March 2, 2026, under the identifier RIPL. This integration places Ripple Prime in close proximity to traditional financial intermediaries and grants access to the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation's Government Securities Division, which handles massive daily U.S. Treasury volumes. Analysts suggest these connections could channel institutional capital to the XRP Ledger without requiring the DTCC to issue assets directly on the public network. Instead, post-trade reconciliation and settlement could gradually migrate to the XRPL, with RLUSD acting as a collateralization tool linking internal liquidity to tokenized securities, ETFs, and Treasuries. The DTCC’s first tokenization pilot operations are slated for this month, keeping the industry on alert for concrete steps toward a Wall Street gateway for XRPL.
