XRP News Today: Ripple Builds Financial Link Through XRP Ledger's 2025 Strategic Shift

Monica Long, President of Ripple, revealed a new direction for the

Ledger in 2025, focusing on launching a lending protocol and broadening its stablecoin offerings. During her remarks at , Long stressed Ripple’s dedication to expanding the XRP Ledger’s use cases beyond just cross-border transactions, introducing innovative features to attract more institutional users and strengthen financial infrastructure. This initiative builds on recent key acquisitions, such as the , a digital asset custody provider, and Hidden Road (now Ripple Prime), which have enhanced Ripple’s expertise in secure wallet solutions and institutional services.

Recent achievements of the XRP Ledger highlight its increasing influence in the global financial sector. Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin, which debuted in December 2024,

in market value within a few months, representing a major milestone for the XRP Ledger. RLUSD, available on both and the XRP Ledger, has been and institutional brokerage services, offering instant and affordable transactions. Long commended the adoption of the stablecoin, highlighting its capacity to transform cross-border payments and .

Ripple’s token release strategy also remains in the spotlight. In November 2025, the company finished its

of one billion XRP tokens from escrow, a standard procedure to ensure predictable supply and transparent markets. Valued at around $2.4 billion, these tokens were distributed in three tranches, mainly allocated to Ripple’s treasury. Since 2018, this system has locked 55 billion XRP in smart contracts to avoid abrupt supply increases, with blockchain records indicating that most released tokens are returned to escrow, keeping the circulating supply steady.

Ripple’s ambitious growth plan has involved more than $4 billion in acquisitions since 2024, including GTreasury and Rail, to create a robust suite of financial infrastructure solutions. These efforts are designed to meet institutional needs for secure asset custody and cross-chain compatibility, positioning Ripple to compete in a digital asset custody market expected to reach $10 trillion by 2030. At the same time, Ripple’s CTO David Schwartz reaffirmed the

, which does away with miners and smart contracts, instead using a consensus protocol that focuses on mathematical finality rather than incentive-based validation.

As Ripple integrates its recent acquisitions into the XRP ecosystem, the company encounters both growth prospects and hurdles. While RLUSD’s achievements have proven the stablecoin’s value in practical scenarios, some experts debate whether its presence on Ethereum could lessen the XRP Ledger’s significance. Nonetheless, Long reiterated that XRP remains at the heart of Ripple’s strategy, acting as a key bridge asset for cross-border payments and institutional liquidity.