Ripple, Clearpool, and credit solutions firm Cicada Partners are moving to bring institutional lending to the XRP Ledger. The proposed platform, initially reported on August 20, 2026, aims to combine Clearpool’s decentralized credit marketplace with Ripple’s enterprise blockchain infrastructure.
Unlike much of DeFi, where 98% of yield is generated by speculative crypto-to-crypto lending, the initiative would target the global private credit market valued at more than $10 billion. Borrowers would be real-world businesses—particularly fintech and payment companies needing working capital—rather than purely crypto-native entities.
The lending system is expected to use Ripple’s regulated stablecoin RLUSD for loans. RLUSD is overseen by the New York Department of Financial Services and custodied at the Bank of New York. Meanwhile, all on-chain activity—pool creation, loan issuance, repayments—would occur on the XRP Ledger, meaning each transaction would consume XRP for network fees and mandatory wallet reserves.
To reduce smart contract risk, developers plan to integrate lending directly into the base protocol through the native XLS-65 (Single Asset Vaults) and XLS-66 (Lending Protocol) amendments, rather than relying on third-party contracts. Ripple itself would participate in the lending fund as a regular investor on a pari passu basis, not as a financial guarantor. Compliance features include digital participant identities and a Clawback function for forced return of funds.
The project remains in the proposal and testing phase. Clearpool is testing end-to-end user scenarios on Devnet, and final Mainnet deployment depends on independent XRPL validators approving and activating the XLS-65 and XLS-66 amendments. Regulatory and technical hurdles also remain, especially given Ripple’s legal history and fragmented rules for decentralized lending.
