State of XRP Ledger Q1 2025

Key Insights

• XRP’s market capitalization increased 2% QoQ, significantly outperforming the combined market capitalization of BTC, ETH, and SOL, which declined by 22% QoQ.
• Ripple’s USD-pegged stablecoin RLUSD closed Q1 with a market cap of $44.2 million on the XRPL, making it the network’s largest stablecoin.
• On April 8, Ripple acquired Hidden Road, making it the first crypto company to own and operate a global, multi-asset prime broker. Hidden Road plans to migrate its post-trade operations to the XRP Ledger (XRPL) and adopt Ripple’s USD-backed stablecoin, RLUSD, as collateral across its brokerage services.
• The XRPL EVM Sidechain went live on testnet on March 31 and is scheduled for mainnet launch in Q2. Separately, a timeline has been released to introduce native smart contracts on the XRPL with Extensions that will allow developers to attach code to existing XRPL primitives as the first step.
• Average daily CLOB volume increased 74% QoQ to $13.7 million, while average daily AMM volume declined 13% QoQ to $4.5 million.

Primer

XRP Ledger (XRP) has been running for over a decade, offering cross-currency and cross-border payments, and tokenization, among other features. Core value propositions of the XRP Ledger (XRPL) include fast and cheap transactions (relative to other currency-focused networks) and native functionalities — such as tokens, NFTs, a decentralized exchange (DEX), escrow functionality, embedded compliance, and token management.

With these capabilities, the XRPL can execute many of the same functions as other networks. NFTs, stablecoins, synthetic assets, and other markets found on programmable settlement layers are available on the XRPL as native functionality with composability through enshrined mechanisms such as a central limit order book (CLOB) and automated market maker (AMM). The XRPL base layer doesn’t currently support arbitrary smart contracts, which was a deliberate design choice to prioritize security and stability through simplicity. However, plans to introduce advanced programmability via native smart contracts were announced in September 2024. The first step in this effort is the introduction of Extensions, a feature that will allow developers to attach code to existing XRPL primitives to enhance their functionality without entirely new smart contracts. Additionally, alternative execution environments, via sidechains, add additional functionality and use cases to the overall ecosystem.

The XRPL is supported by various development groups and individuals, including the XRP Ledger Foundation, Ripple, XRPL Labs (and Xaman), and XRPL Commons. It provides a digital payment infrastructure not just for individuals but also for existing financial entities, such as commercial banks and fintechs, with the community’s deep interest in B2B and B2C solutions for finance. For a full primer on XRP Ledger, refer to our Initiation of Coverage report.

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Key Metrics

Financial Analysis

At the close of Q1’25, the XRPL’s native token, XRP, was the fourth-largest crypto asset by market capitalization at $121.6 billion (+2% QoQ). XRP’s price increased 0.5% QoQ, with the discrepancy between market cap and price due to a 1.4% increase in circulating supply.

On March 2, U.S. President Donald Trump posted to his Truth Social account that his Executive Orders on Digital Assets “directed the Presidential Working Group to move forward on a Crypto Strategic Reserve that includes XRP, SOL, and ADA.” Also in March, Ripple agreed to drop its cross-appeal of the SEC following the SEC’s decision to drop its appeal of the SEC vs. Ripple decision. In 2023, U.S. District Court judge Analisa Torres ruled that Ripple’s programmatic sales of XRP to retail exchanges did not violate federal securities laws. Torres found that only Ripple’s institutional sales violated securities laws, ordering Ripple to pay a $125 million fine. Under the newly proposed settlement, which is subject to commissioner and court approval, the SEC will keep $50 million of the $125 million fine it previously received from Ripple, with the remainder returned to Ripple.

On April 8, Teucrium Investment Advisors LLC launched the Teucirum 2x Long Daily XRP ETF (XXRP), the first XRP-based ETF in the U.S. In January, Coinshares became the fifth company to complete an S-1 filing to launch an XRP ETF, following filings from Wisdom Tree, Bitwise, Canary, and 21Shares in Q4.

In December of last year, Wisdom Tree became the fourth company to complete an S-1 filing to launch an XRP ETF. On XRPL, transaction fees are systematically burned, applying deflationary pressure to the total supply of 100 billion XRP. Since the XRP Ledger’s inception, about 13.8 million XRP ($28.7 million at the close of Q1’25) has been burned. This low burn rate is due to the relatively low transaction fees (<$0.006 per transaction) on the network. Counteracting the burn rate, 1 billion XRP ($2.1 billion at the close of Q1’25) is released from escrow to Ripple per month. Any XRP not spent or distributed by Ripple in that month is put into new escrow contracts. This system will continue until the remaining ~35 billion XRP becomes liquid.

Unlike many other cryptocurrency networks, the XRPL does not distribute rewards or transaction fees to its validators. In Proof-of-Association (PoA), rather than receiving rewards, validators are mainly incentivized by supporting the decentralization of the network, similar to a full node for Ethereum/Bitcoin rather than a validator/miner.

While XRP’s market cap was effectively flat QoQ (+1.9%), it still outperformed the combined market capitalization of BTC, ETH, and SOL, which declined by 22% QoQ. Year-over-year, XRP’s circulating market cap has increased 252% from $34.6 billion at the close of Q1 2024. On the XRPL, transaction fees are burnt and not distributed to stakers like on many other networks.

Network Analysis

In Q1, all measured network metrics grew for a second consecutive quarter. Notably, Q4 2024 and Q1 2025 are the only times this has occurred since Messari began covering the XRPL in Q1 2023. Chief among these metrics, average daily active addresses increased 142% QoQ to 134,600, indicating an increase in both new and existing users. Moreover, total new addresses increased 12% QoQ to 568,300, a 210% year-over-year increase from 183,200 in Q1 2024. Account creations and deletions are meaningful on the XRPL (unlike on most networks) as accounts require a 1 XRP deposit to be created, which can be reclaimed after deleting the account. As such, the XRPL’s account metrics are more reliable than other networks where account creations can easily be spammed/Sybiled at zero cost. Notably, the base reserve requirement was lowered from 10 XRP to 1 XRP in December 2024.

Addresses on the XRPL can contain destination tags, which enable a single address to receive and track XRP deposits for an arbitrary number of users. As a result, the number of daily active addresses is skewed downward, given that one account (e.g., a centralized exchange) could be responsible for a large number of users. It should be noted that a unique address is required for receiving tokens on most other networks, like ETH on Ethereum or BTC on Bitcoin.

For the fourth consecutive quarter, active receiver addresses exceeded active sender addresses on the XRPL. Average daily receivers increased 168% from 47,700 to 127,800, while average daily senders increased 14.5% from 30,000 to 34,300. The active recipient metric is determined by the number of addresses that receive a transfer or other transaction. When recipients outpace senders, it indicates that more previously inactive wallets are receiving tokens distributed by senders than there are senders distributing those tokens. One common reason for this dynamic is airdrops, which are a token distribution strategy to reward and engage community members. In January, Galxe, a Web3 community growth platform, introduced its XRP Earndrop with up to 400,000 XRP in rewards. Airdrops are more practical on networks with low transaction fees, such as the XRPL, or networks that enable batch transactions.

In Q1, average total daily transactions increased 13% QoQ to 2.04 million per day. The total daily transactions metric includes 55 different transaction types, such as payments, escrow creations, NFT burns, and account deletions.

In each of the last five quarters, Payment and OfferCreate have represented the vast majority of transactions on the XRP Ledger. Payment represents a transfer of value from one account to another, while OfferCreate submits an order to exchange cryptoassets. Notably, this transaction type only creates an “Order” on the order book and does not necessarily facilitate an exchange unless it completes an existing open Order. OfferCreate initiates a DEX limit order, and Offer objects represent bids/asks on the order book. Offers are consumed to process transactions such as Payment and OfferCancel (triggered manually or by expirations). If an Offer is only partially consumed by a transaction, a new Offer is created with the remainder of the original, similar to a UTXO. An Offer can be canceled by the OfferCancel transaction. Trust Lines are structures for holding tokens that protect accounts from being sent unwanted tokens, and the TrustSet transaction is used to open or close those Trust Lines.

After declining 8% in Q4, Payment transactions increased 36% QoQ to 1.12 million. Historically, for smaller activity spikes, the difference between the active recipient and sender addresses has been largely due to centralized exchanges and custodians using destination tags and sending Payment transactions. Centralized exchanges and custodians mostly use the Payment transaction type for deposits and withdrawals. As such, the Payment transaction type has consistently had more receiving addresses than sending addresses. In addition, users typically prefer creating wallets on centralized solutions for easy access to the initial XRP required to create a self-custody wallet. After acquiring their initial XRP, many users withdraw to their self-custody wallets, resulting in fewer active senders and many active receivers.

Payments exceeded OfferCreates for the fifth consecutive quarter, with Payments’ share of the overall transaction count increasing to 55% (+21% QoQ), while OfferCreates’ share declined to 32% (-19% QoQ). Prior to Q1 2024, OfferCreate was historically the most common transaction type. Notably, OracleSet, which creates or updates an existing price oracle, was the fifth most common transaction type in Q1, accounting for 0.8% of the overall transaction count. Price Oracles were enabled on the XRPL in November 2024 for pricing wrapped/bridged assets. Anyone can now call OracleSet to create or update an existing price oracle or OracleDelete to delete an existing price oracle. Subsequently, oracle providers Band Protocol and DIA integrated with the XRPL in December. With oracles enabled, the get aggregate price API call aggregates the price of an asset from all live oracles while discarding any outliers. The “Other” category of transactions includes transaction types for NFTs, escrows, multisigs, setting signer keys, and more. These transaction types are covered in depth in the Ecosystem Overview section.

DEX

CLOB

A built-in central limit order book (CLOB) processes exchanges on the XRPL for fungible tokens (also called Issued Currencies or simply tokens). This CLOB has been part of the XRPL since its inception and comes with the benefit of fewer trust assumptions and consolidated liquidity, rather than the inherent vulnerabilities of smart contracts. The majority of transactions come from the native CLOB. Although there is only one CLOB, there are many marketplaces acting as gateways that facilitate access. Gateways, also known as marketplaces, all share liquidity and provide a viable user interface for the average user. At the end of Q1, the top three gateways by volume facilitated were XPMarket, First Ledger, and Magnetic.

AMM

In addition to the existing CLOB, an automated market maker (AMM) was voted into the protocol in March of 2024, as detailed by the XLS-30 standard. All prominent DEXs (First Ledger, XP Market, MagneticX, Sologenic, etc) and newer platforms, such as Orchestra Finance and Moai Finance, have integrated. AMMs function through liquidity pools that algorithmically price assets rather than creating offers of preset specifications. Liquidity pools allow holders to earn a share of trade fees on their tokens by offering them as liquidity. Importantly, orders can be partially routed through the AMM and partially through the CLOB, as both work together as part of the DEX.

Servers

Nodes and validators, known as servers, all run the same client software: rippled. Anyone can run a node to maintain a local copy of the ledger, relay transactions, and provide access to the ledger. PoA requires each node to set a list of trusted nodes, which it will rely on for consensus. This list of trusted nodes is known as a unique node list (UNL) and determines the validator set that participates in XRPL’s PoA consensus.

Over 79% of nodes have upgraded to V2.4.0 since its release in March. As of the end of Q1, the XRPL is supported by 9498 nodes and 203 validators. Nodes increased from 886, and validators decreased from 182 since Q4 2024. Notably, on Feb. 4, the XRPL halted for approximately 64 minutes. Ripple Chief Technology Officer David Schwartz shared preliminary observations the same day, though no further official findings have been released.

XRPL servers participate in federated consensus as part of the XRPL’s Proof-of-Association (PoA) consensus mechanism. Validators do not stake tokens or receive financial rewards. Instead, the system is based on trust between nodes. Each node sets a list of trusted nodes, known as a unique node list (UNL). Additionally, the Negative UNL is a feature that adjusts servers’ “effective UNLs” based on which validators are currently online and operational. The UNLModify transaction, which was called an average of 8.5 times per day in Q1, marks a change in the Negative UNL, indicating that a trusted validator has gone offline or come back online.

Ecosystem Analysis

Although the XRPL’s ecosystem hosts many of the same features as programmable settlement networks, such as Ethereum, Solana, and Cardano, the XRPL does not natively support smart contracts. However, in September 2024, Ripple, along with the broader XRP community, announced its intent to introduce native smart contracts on the XRPL via an upcoming XLS proposal. The first step in this effort is the introduction of Extensions, a feature that allows developers to attach code to existing XRPL primitives to enhance their functionality without entirely new smart contracts. This will enable permissionless customization of XRPL’s built-in features such as escrows, NFTs, authorized trustlines, payment channels, the DEX, and AMM. The first intended extension is “Smart Escrows,” which will allow developers to write custom release conditions requiring a notary account, credentials, or other means to unlock an escrow. A fully functional devnet for Smart Escrows was released in Q1, while an amendment to enable Smart Escrows is intended in Q3. A full Smart Contract devnet is intended in Q4.

Historically, arbitrary smart contracts have not been enabled on the base layer as a design choice to ensure maximum security, performance, and stability. Instead, ecosystem artifacts – such as a DEX and Issued Currencies – are natively built into the protocol. The XRPL supports multiple assets through tokens (also called Issued Currencies or IOUs). They are onchain representations of arbitrary currencies, commodities, units, etc.

Issued Currencies

The total market cap of fungible tokens, known as Issued Currencies, increased 6.5% QoQ to $281.5 million. This increase can be attributed to the growth of Ripple’s USD-pegged stablecoin RLUSD, whose market cap on the XRPL increased 304% QoQ from $6.4 million to $25.9 million. Last quarter, the total market cap of Issued Currencies increased 176% QoQ from $95.8 million to $264 million, due in large part to a surge in the market cap of memecoins, many of which declined in Q1. Notably, XPMarket, the provider of Issued Currencies market cap data, excludes wallets that hold more than 5% of a token’s total supply from the circulating supply used to calculate a token’s market cap, unless the founding team contacts XPMarket manually to justify the wallet’s holdings.

There are more than 26,000 listed assets on the XRPL, but the top token, SOLO, accounted for 32% of the total market cap at the close of Q1 (down from 60% of the total market cap at the close of Q4). Combined, the top five tokens accounted for more than 56% of the total market cap (down from 80% at the close of Q4).

The top tokens on the XRPL by market cap at the close of Q1, according to XP Market were as follows:

• Sologenic (SOLO) had a market cap of $91.3 million (-43% QoQ) and 219,200 holders (-0.4% QoQ). SOLO is primarily used to pay transaction fees on the Sologenic gateway.
• Ripple USD (RLUSD) had a market cap of $25.9 million (+304% QoQ) and 32,350 holders (+338% QoQ). RLUSD is Ripple’s USD-pegged stablecoin launched on both the XRPL and Ethereum backed entirely by U.S. dollar deposits, short-term U.S. treasuries, and “other cash equivalents,” with monthly third-party attestations.
• Bitstamp BTC (BTC) had a market cap of $15.9 million (-20% QoQ) and 4,350 holders (+0.9% QoQ). Bitstamp BTC is a wrapped version of Bitcoin provided by Bitstamp.
• Coreum (CORE) had a market cap of $14.7 million (-41% QoQ) and 67,100 holders (-1.6% QoQ). CORE is the native token of the Coreum sidechain, which was also developed by the Sologenic team.
• XP Market (XPM) had a market cap of $10.6 million (-44% QoQ) and 98,500 holders (+25% QoQ). XPM is used to access features such as launchpad access, enhanced portfolio views, and fee discounts on XP Market, one of the top DEXs on the XRPL by volume. XP Market also features a marketplace for NFTs that includes an auction mechanism and serves as a hub for analytics and portfolio management.

Trust Lines are structures in the XRP Ledger for holding fungible tokens and enforce the XRPL’s rule that someone cannot be forced to hold a token they don’t want. As such, Trust Lines make metrics around token behavior on the XRPL more reliable. While an account’s first two trustlines are free, thereafter the XRPL requires a lockup of 0.2 XRP (owner reserve) for each object, such as an issued currency, that the address owns. A base reserve of 2 XRP is also required to create an address. Notably, in December 2024, the base reserve requirement was lowered from 10 XRP to 1 XRP, and the owner reserve from 2 XRP to 0.2 XRP. These requirements make it expensive to enact a Sybil attack on XRPL metrics, such as the number of holders. For this reason, the number of holders is a reliable metric of a token’s adoption on the XRPL. The metric is especially relevant for fungible tokens, which have much higher supplies than NFTs.

DEX (CLOB and AMM)

Average daily CLOB volume of fungible Issued Currencies increased 74% QoQ from $7.9 million to $13.7 million, while the average daily amount of CLOB trades declined by 9% to 638,800. Average daily CLOB traders increased 23% QoQ to 11,500. First Ledger, a Telegram trading bot developed by the team behind xrp.cafe, is the leading DEX (i.e., the leading gateway to the native DEX) on the XRPL by trading volume facilitated. Other prominent DEXs (gateways) include XPMarket, Sologenic, and MagneticX.

After peaking on Nov. 30, 2024, with $60.5 million in volume, daily AMM volume steadily declined with successive lower highs in December and Q1. As a result, average daily AMM volume decreased 13% QoQ from $5.2 million in Q4 to $4.5 million in Q1. Notably, XRP Ledger’s AMM design includes a mechanism that allows the liquidity providers of a respective liquidity pool to bid LP tokens for an auction slot, which grants a discount on trading fees for a 24-hour period. This mechanism is intended to incentivize the account holding the auction slot for a given liquidity pool to keep prices in balance with external markets. Liquidity on the AMM is shared across all DEXs (gateways), just like with the CLOB.

In Q1, CLOB volume exceeded NFT volume by 300x ($1.2 billion vs $3.8 million), up from more than 150x ($725.9 million vs. $4.3 million) in Q4. This increasing trend on the XRPL matches the wider trend across other major crypto networks, which have seen increased fungible token trading relative to non-fungible (NFT) trading.

NFTs

On the XRPL, NFTs are built into the core protocol and do not require smart contracts for creation or transfers, like Issued Currencies (also known as native tokens). NFTs were standardized by XLS-20 in October 2022, bringing benefits such as royalties and anti-spam features. These features help users not only avoid unwanted tokens but also help them stay legally compliant by avoiding specific tokens and smart contracts that have been made illegal within specific regions. Notable NFT projects on XRPL include:

• Gaming NFTs, such as Zerpmon, a Pokemon-esque game.
• Real-world solutions/assets such as Tiamonds tokenized diamonds or Xange’s carbon credits program.

In Q1, daily average total NFT transactions fell 63% from 41,700 to 15,400 due to a decline in NFT mint and burn transactions. Daily average NFT mint transactions declined 83% QoQ from 19,900 to 3,400, while daily average burn transactions declined 96% from 13,500 to 500. Despite this, offer create, accept and cancel transactions each increased by more than 30%, indicating increased marketplace transaction activity even as overall NFT transactions and volume declined QoQ.

After a massive spike in mint activity in Q4 2024, NFTokenCreateOffer returned as the most common transaction type in Q1 2025, like it did in Q2 2024 after a similar spike in mint activity in Q1 of that year. As of the end of Q1, nearly 8.0 million total NFTs have been minted with the XLS-20 standard. Notably, over 3.4 million of those mints came in Q4 2023 and more than 1.8 million in Q4 2024.

Stablecoins and Wrapped Assets

Ripple’s USD-pegged stablecoin RLUSD closed Q1 with a combined market cap of $244.2 million on the XRPL and Ethereum, according to RWA.xyz. On XRPL, RLUSD closed Q1 with a market cap of $44.2 million on the XRPL, making it the network’s largest stablecoin. Historically, stablecoins on XRPL have not seen the adoption of major stablecoins on other networks, such as USDT and USDC, which closed Q1 with market caps of $144.0 billion and $60.1 billion across all networks on which they are supported. In many cases, the introduction of a trusted stablecoin in a novel execution environment has proven to be a massive liquidity event (e.g., Cardano’s iUSD in 2023), particularly as a desired pairing asset for AMMs.

Previously, regulatorily compliant assets like RLUSD that have Clawback enabled (a feature on the XRPL that allows token issuers to recover issued tokens after they have already been distributed to accounts) could not be used on the AMM as clawback support was not enabled. However, with the AMM Clawback amendment enabled in January, these assets can now trade on the AMM, likely spurring larger AMM volumes as more regulatorily compliant assets are issued on the XRPL. Key use cases include trading previously illiquid RWAs onchain, yield generation via AMM pools, and price arbitrage of these assets across chains.

Behind RLUSD and Bitstamp BTC (referenced above), the top stablecoins and wrapped tokens on the XRPL by market cap at the close of Q1 (according to XPMarket) were as follows:

• Gatehub Fifth (ETH): $6.8 million market cap (-60% QoQ) and 25,980 holders (-0.2% QoQ)
• Ripple Fox CNY: $5.9 million market cap (+13.2% QoQ) and 11,890 holders (+1.4% QoQ)
• Gatehub USD: $4.1 million market cap (-6.9% QoQ) and 20,130 holders (-0.2% QoQ)
• Bitstamp USD: $3.9 million market cap (-19.3%) and 7,310 holders (+0.1% QoQ)

Additionally, in November, SG-FORGE announced plans to launch its EURCV stablecoin on the XRPL in 2025, while Braza Group announced in February it would launch BBRL, pegged to the Brazilian Real, on the XRPL.

RLUSD publicly launched on Dec. 17, 2024, on both the XRPL and Ethereum and is backed entirely by U.S. Dollar deposits, short-term U.S. treasuries, and “other cash equivalents,” with monthly third-party attestations. In January, Ripple announced that Chainlink Price Feeds were live, providing RLUSD pricing data on Ethereum. In April, Ripple integrated RLUSD into its cross-border payments system, Ripple Payments, and Kraken launched trading for the token. In addition, LMAX Group, Zero Hash, and Bitstamp listed RLUSD in Q1, joining previously announced platforms, including Uphold, Bitso, MoonPay, Archax, CoinMENA, Independent Reserve, and Bullish.

Finally, Axelar, a full-stack interoperability protocol (i.e., a crypto overlay network), announced in February 2024 that it would integrate the XRPL. Integration is intended for Q2 2025 and will connect the XRPL ecosystem to the 60+ networks, including the Ethereum and Cosmos ecosystems. As the AMM grows, the Axelar connection will make it easier to source liquidity from many of the highest-TVL networks.

RWAs

In March, real-world asset (RWA) analytics platform RWA.xyz integrated the XRPL, allowing users to see key metrics regarding RWAs issued on the network. To date, two RWAs have been integrated onto RWA.xyz on the XRPL, though more integrations are planned.

• Abrdn’s US Dollar Liquidity Fund (LUX): Since November 2024, Archax has provided access on the XRPL for professional investors to UK asset manager abrdn’s £3.8 billion LUX money market fund. LUX closed Q1 with a $44.9 million market cap on the XRPL, up almost 9x from $5 million on Feb. 14, the first date of data provided by RWA.xyz. Ripple initially allocated $5 million into the fund, which marked the first example of Ripple and Archax’s ongoing partnership intended to bring hundreds of millions of dollars in RWAs to the XRPL over the next year. On March 31, Archax announced it had acquired a U.S. SEC and FINRA-regulated broker-dealer, allowing Archax to extend its distribution to the U.S. market.
• OpenEden’s US Treasury Bill Vault (TBILL): Since August 2024, OpenEden has offered its tokenized US Treasury Bill (TBILL), which invests deposits in short-dated US T-bills and reverse repurchase agreements collateralized by US Treasuries. TBILL tokens can be minted from stablecoins, including RLUSD, and accrue interest earned proportionately. TBILL closed Q1 with a $5.1 million market cap (+1% QoQ) all held by Ripple, which initially invested $5 million and has committed to allocate a total of $10 million.

Beyond LUX and TBILL, many other real-world assets (RWAs) from around the world are being made available on XRPL. In January, Ondo Finance announced that it would deploy Ondo Short-Term US Government Treasuries (OUSG), its tokenized treasury fund on the XRPL, within six months of its announcement. Meld Gold is also working towards public availability of its fungible gold (GLD) and silver (SLV) assets on the XRPL, which are fully backed by physical gold and silver. In September 2024, Meld Gold completed its first onchain transaction as part of the ongoing rollout. Also in September, Tiamonds, a tokenized diamond project whereby users can hold NFTs representing real-world diamonds, launched on the xrp.cafe marketplace. In October 2024, Aurum Equity Partners launched a $1 billion combined equity and debt tokenized fund on the XRPL via asset tokenization solution Zoniqx, which is partnered with Ripple to bring RWAs to the XRPL. Finally, in December 2024, Elysia introduced its tokenized U.S. Treasury bills.

Adjacent to RWAs, the XRPL has also been explored as a tool for other institutional products. Ripple is the leading company developing technologies to leverage the XRPL for institutional and government use cases. The company is focused on using XRP and the XRPL to drive its On-Demand Liquidity service, custody, and tokenization initiatives.

Proper licensing and regulatory compliance from Ripple is necessary for institutional and government adoption. On April 8, Ripple announced it had acquired Hidden Road, making it the first crypto company to own and operate a global, multi-asset prime broker. Hidden Road will receive capital from Ripple to scale operations and expand market capacity. The company also plans to migrate its post-trade operations to the XRP Ledger (XRPL) and adopt Ripple’s USD-backed stablecoin, RLUSD, as collateral across its brokerage services. In March, Ripple became the first blockchain payments provider licensed by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) to provide crypto payments and services in the Dubai International Finance Centre (DIFC).

Partnerships with institutions are also crucial to increasing adoption. In February, Korean institution custody firm BDACS signed a strategic partnership with Ripple to provide custody infrastructure services for XRP, RLUSD, and other crypto assets, while Portuguese currency exchange provider Unicâmbio partnered with Ripple to support instant cross-border payments between Portugal and Brazil using Ripple Payments.

Sidechains

Multiple sidechains for the XRPL are either in development or were recently launched. Though a development timeline to introduce native smart contracts was announced in February 2025, to date, the XRPL has maintained minimal L1 complexity, offering increased programmability for both general and specific use cases on sidechains.

XRPL EVM Sidechain

After completing a security audit in February, the XRPL EVM Sidechain developed by Peersyst went live on testnet on March 31. The sidechain is scheduled for mainnet launch in Q2 and aims to grant the XRPL ecosystem access to EVM developers and functionality, with a general-purpose scope. The sidechain is being built on the Cosmos SDK, specifically evmOS, and connects to the XRPL through the XRPL-EVM bridge powered by Axelar. Grove is the sidechain’s first external RPC provider. Users can transfer testnet XRP and other tokens between the XRPL and XRPL EVM Sidechain using Squid Router, which is also powered by Axelar.

Coreum

Coreum (CORE) is an enterprise-grade L1 focused on interoperability and scalability. Coreum runs a WASM VM and is secured by a Bonded Proof-of-Stake (BPoS) consensus mechanism. CORE is used for transaction fees, staking, and validator rewards on Coreum.

Coreum was built by the Sologenic team to service user needs that could not be efficiently managed on the XRPL. The network’s initial focus is on providing security tokenization, such as tokenized stocks from the NYSE and synthetic assets. Coreum is IBC integrated, granting access to all IBC-connected networks such as Cosmos Hub, Ethereum, and BNB Smart Chain. This integration has, by extension, brought interoperability with other networks, such as Solana, via Coreum’s integration with Picasso Network. Coreum’s V4 upgrade in July 2024 introduced smart contract extensions to tokens, a clawback feature, and dynamic NFT data, among other updates.

Development of the native DEX was completed in November 2024, which is undergoing a four-phase rollout. Following native DEX implementation, advanced DEX functions are intended for release in Q2, including liquidity pools, multi-token swaps, and advanced order types, as is a gateway to tokenize and manage RWAs. Users can already transfer between Coreum and the XRPL via the noncustodial Sologenic bridge.

Root Network

The Root Network sidechain is a blockchain-based NFT system with a focus on UX and metaverse, run by Futureverse. The Root Network is live in alpha, along with its bridge to XRPL and Ethereum, which was upgraded in September 2024 to allow two-way bridging of any token between the XRPL and The Root Network. Yield platform Doppler Finance is capitalizing on this development as it works towards releasing a lending protocol on The Root Network and a liquid staking token (LST) for the network’s native token ROOT.

Built from a Substrate fork, the Root Network uses XRP as the default gas token and has EVM support for smart contracts. The Root Network uses a delegated-Proof-of-Stake (dPoS) consensus mechanism (via the ROOT token). The protocol’s roadmap items are aligned with the XRPL, seeking to integrate the XLS-20 NFT standard and source liquidity from the XRPL DEX. Root Network also plans to offer users social recovery, management of assets, increased wallet flexibility, and a familiar Web2 experience through the account abstraction solution FuturePass.

Governance

The XRP Ledger (XRPL) uses an offchain governance process that allows community members and organizations to propose changes to the network. Users can submit proposals, otherwise known as Amendments, to the “XRPL-Standards” repository on the project’s GitHub. Block-producing validators on the network can then run versions of the XRPL source code that implement the proposed amendments. If 80.00% or more of the block-producing validators support the amended source code for two weeks, then it is implemented as the new source code for the network. Validators that do not support the amended source code are then blocked from contributing to consensus until they update to the newly changed version.

Recent notable approved amendments include AMM Clawback (January 2025), Price Oracles (November 2024), and Decentralized Identity (October 2024). Decentralized Identity (DID) enables verifiable, self-sovereign digital identities on the XRPL for use cases in compliance, access control, digital signatures, and secure transactions. DID is essential for regulatorily compliant institutions, which require KYC and AML compliance to control access to tokenized RWAs and securities, and trading and lending platforms.

A number of other proposals that have yet to be approved build on DID, expanding compliance features. These include:

• Credentials (XLS-70): Designed to be a lightweight feature additive to the DID standard, Credentials are a framework for issuing, managing, and verifying user credentials directly on the XRP Ledger. This standard introduces a new ‘Credential’ ledger object along with new transaction types for creating, accepting, and deleting credentials.
• Permissioned Domains (XLS-80): Building on Credentials, XLS-80 introduces Permissioned Domains, allowing entities, such as institutions, to require specific credentials to access their offerings on the XRPL. This includes Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements. Notably, user privacy is maintained by verifying credentials without exposing personal information.
• Permissioned DEXes (XLS-81): Ensures that only accounts with valid credentials can create or fill orders on a permissioned domain, allowing institutions to adhere to regulatory requirements such as Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and KYC rules.
• Deep Freeze (XLS-77): The existing Freeze feature allows issuers to prevent an account from sending tokens, but still allows it to receive them. Deep Freeze allows issuers to prohibit an account from both sending and receiving a token that it has issued.

Other notable proposals that have yet to be approved include:

• Multi-Purpose Tokens (XLS-33): A proposal to introduce the multi-purpose token standard (MPT). MPT enables support for metadata to store parameters regarding an issued RWA, such as the maturity date of a tokenized bond. Coupled with the clawback function enabled in Q1 2024, the XRPL is continuing to add functionality to give regulatorily compliant token issuers more control.
• Simulating Transaction Execution (XLS-69): Proposes a new simulate API method for developers to safely experiment with transactions for testing and refinement.

Also, in April 2024, proposals were made to introduce a native lending protocol on the XRPL (XLS-66), whereby users could lend and borrow supported assets, such as XRP, wBTC, and wETH, using single-asset vaults (XLS-65). The single-asset vault will use credentials and permissioned domains for access control and support a number of compliance features, including account freezing, asset freezing, and clawback. Unlike overcollateralized lending protocols like Aave, the protocol is intended to offer onchain fixed-term and rate loans via offchain underwriting, risk management, and an insurance fund — a model akin to that implemented by TrueFi on Ethereum.

In November 2024, the XRP Ledger Foundation’s incorporation documents were filed in France, establishing a new entity to support the XRPL’s development and operations. Four founding members—XRPL Commons, XRPL Labs, Ripple, and XAO DAO—established the entity. In February, these supporting entities and others began to transfer previous XRPL Foundation assets, including the Unique Node List (UNL), to this new entity. The new XRP Ledger Foundation is governed via a board of directors that elects a President, Secretary, and Treasurer for two-year terms and operates via committees. Additionally, a General Assembly inclusive of community members, including developers, users, academics, validators, and infrastructure providers, can provide advisory input on decisions. As part of the transition process, the existing XRPL Foundation team established a new Inclusive Financial Technology Foundation (InFTF).

Other Notable Updates

In Q1, a number of additional updates, integrations, partnerships, and upgrades took place, enhancing the XRPL ecosystem and the network’s overall utility.

• Xaman partnered with Moonpay for XRP and RLUSD on-ramping to the XRPL using fiat payment methods. It also introduced its ecosystem fund, whereby 10% of Xaman Service fees from integrations are redistributed to developers.
• Peersyst released a GO SDK that has feature parity with its JavaScript SDK on the XRPL.
• Trust Wallet integrated the XRP Ledger.
• Renora launched its Dips Sniper bot on the XRPL for passive accumulation of XRP using RLUSD.
• In January, Ripple hosted XRP Community Day 2025, which included three major regional sessions in EMEA, the Americas, and APAC. From June 10-12, Ripple will host XRPL Apex 2025 in Singapore, the largest annual summit for the XRPL community.
• Doppler Finance launched on the XRPL, allowing users to deposit XRP, which is subsequently used to generate yield via arbitrage across centralized exchanges and delta-neutral positions on XRP perpetual futures contracts.

The XRPL is supported by a number of community support programs funded by Ripple’s commitment of 1 billion XRP in March 2022. These programs include the XRPL grants program established in May 2021 to support development on the XRPL and the XRPL accelerator program, an accelerator for new and existing XRPL ecosystem projects. Other community support programs include XRPL Hackathons and the Aquarium Residency for developers offered by XRPL Commons. The RippleX Bug Bounty Program also pays bounties to individuals or groups that identify and report bugs in the rippled, xrpl.js, xrpl-py, and xrpl4j repositories.

In February, applications closed for XRPL Accelerator 2025, which will take place from June through August in Singapore and provides up to $200,000 USD in grant funding to each team selected. The program is offered by Ripple Labs in partnership with Tenity, which in December announced its Tenity Inc Fund II to fund early-stage builders on the XRPL in Asia and Europe. Additionally, XRPL grants program applications are currently available for the Brazil Fund, AI Fund, and Japan and Korea Fund, alongside rolling applications, which are open year-round. In March, XRPL Korea and DeButler co-hosted the XRPL Korea Blockchain Hackathon. The hackathon had two tracks: the Idea Track for building fintech service ideas on the XRPL, and the Product Track for developing real-world prototypes using the XRPL or XRPL EVM Sidechain.

Closing Summary

XRP’s market capitalization increased 2% QoQ, significantly outperforming the combined market capitalization of BTC, ETH, and SOL, which declined by 22% QoQ. Moreover, all XRPL network metrics covered by Messari grew for a second consecutive quarter. Notably, Q4 2024 and Q1 2025 are the only times this has occurred since Messari began coverage of the XRPL in Q1 2023. Chief among these metrics, average daily active addresses increased 142% QoQ to 134,600, indicating an increase in both new and existing users.

The XRPL EVM Sidechain went live on testnet on March 31 and is scheduled for mainnet launch in Q2. Separately, a timeline has been released to introduce native smart contracts on the XRPL. The first step in this effort is the introduction of Extensions, a feature that allows developers to attach code to existing XRPL primitives to enhance their functionality without entirely new smart contracts. An amendment to enable Smart Escrows (the first Extension) is intended in Q3, while a full Smart Contract devnet is intended in Q4.

Additionally, on April 8, Ripple acquired Hidden Road, making it the first crypto company to own and operate a global, multi-asset prime broker. Hidden Road plans to migrate its post-trade operations to the XRP Ledger (XRPL) and adopt Ripple’s USD-backed stablecoin, RLUSD, as collateral across its brokerage services.

Finally, multiple amendments have been proposed to enable regulatorily compliant institutions to adopt DeFi use cases on the XRPL. These include Credentials, which builds upon the recently introduced Decentralized Identity standard, enabling KYC and AML compliance to control access, and Permissioned Domains, which require specific credentials to access an institution’s offering on the XRPL. As these amendments are enabled, the XRPL is primed for further growth in Q2 as institutional adoption increases, fueled further by strategic partnerships and acquisitions.

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