Key Highlights
- Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse outlined plans to expand the XRP Ledger into institutional lending and on-chain yield generation to move beyond cross-border payments and simple buy-and-hold strategies.
- Nasdaq-listed Evernorth, trading under the ticker XRPN and holding about 473 million XRP, will deploy its treasury in Q4 2026 with partners including Ripple, Kraken, Coinbase, and BitGo to generate returns.
- Two proposed XRPL amendments, XLS-65 for single-asset vaults and XLS-66 for fixed-term loans, are under validator vote and would enable native credit markets with off-chain underwriting for institutional compliance.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has revealed his plan for the next phase for the XRP Ledger, focusing on institutional lending and yield generation tools. His comments came during appearances linked to the Nasdaq debut of Evernorth Holdings, the XRP treasury company that listed under the ticker XRPN on October 14, 2026.
Garlinghouse described native credit infrastructure as an addition to the ledger’s established role in cross-border payments. The purpose is to move beyond simple buy-and-hold strategies so institutions can put XRP holdings to work and generate returns.
Evernorth Debut and Treasury Deployment Plans
Evernorth Holdings completed its business combination and rang the Nasdaq closing bell in New York. The company holds approximately 473 million XRP. Ripple contributed a substantial portion of those tokens as part of its ongoing support for the entire ecosystem.
Evernorth selected Ripple, Kraken, Coinbase, and BitGo as partners to help deploy the treasury. The firm plans to begin institutional strategies in the fourth quarter of 2026. The objective is to generate earnings and increase XRP holdings per share through active management rather than relying completely on price changes.
Garlinghouse said the public listing creates a regulated vehicle that can reach investors who may not hold XRP directly. He credited Evernorth CEO Asheesh Birla, a former Ripple executive, with building a team capable of developing differentiated products.
Native Lending Through Proposed XRPL Amendments
Two network amendments form the technical foundation for the planned credit markets. XLS-65 would create single-asset vaults that hold only XRP or only RLUSD, Ripple’s stablecoin. This design aims to reduce impermanent loss risks that arise in traditional paired liquidity pools.
XLS-66 would enable fixed-term loans funded from those vaults. Institutions would handle borrower assessment and underwriting off-chain through licensed entities. The ledger would manage the loan transactions themselves. A first-loss mechanism is included to allocate initial credit losses among participants.
As of mid-October 2026, validator support for the major amendments stood in the 50% to 60% range. Activation requires sustained support above 80% for two consecutive weeks. Many firms, including Doppler Finance, Clearpool, and Cicada, have indicated plans to offer native lending products once the upgrades activate, targeting a fourth-quarter rollout if approved.
Existing Yield Infrastructure and Compliance Features
Some building blocks are already in place. Doppler Finance has attracted about $150 million from roughly 14,000 depositors into XRP and RLUSD vaults. The XRP vault alone accounts for approximately $125 million. Strategies include delta-neutral approaches, arbitrage, and spot-perpetual basis trading.
Additional tools live on the mainnet to support institutional use. Permission Delegation and Atomic Batch features allow controlled account access without sharing private keys. The Multi-Purpose Token standard is already used for real-world asset tokenization alongside RLUSD.
Compliance is also a major focus for the Ripple ecosystem. KYC and AML checks would rely on the ledger’s domain-verification and digital-mandate capabilities. Garlinghouse mentioned that the design keeps regulated underwriting off-chain while using blockchain settlement, as the company aims to meet the requirements of large financial institutions.
Garlinghouse mentioned that XRP remains central to Ripple’s work across payments, prime brokerage, treasury services, custody, and the RLUSD stablecoin. He stated that the company believes in a multi-chain environment, yet sees unique strengths in the XRP Ledger for speed, cost, and scalability.
He noted that on-chain capabilities can support yield products, and that both on-chain and off-chain opportunities exist. The main purpose is to increase XRP’s utility, liquidity, and trust among institutions rather than depending mainly on speculative trading.
Ripple’s contribution of XRP to Evernorth fits a longer pattern of ecosystem investment. Garlinghouse said the company has consistently looked for ways to support community activity and on-chain development.
Last month, Ripple updated its XRP Ledger AI Starter Kit to support the Machine Payments Protocol. It is an open payment standard co-authored by Stripe and the blockchain network Tempo for transactions between AI agents and online services.
