Ripple‘s head of product, Jazzi Cooper, has identified institutional credit as a potential breakthrough use case for XRP, emphasizing the value of using the digital asset as collateral. Cooper highlighted that while interest in on-chain finance continues to rise, institutional credit remains widely untapped in the crypto sector.
XRPL lending infrastructure advances
Cooper drew attention to recent developments in the XRP Ledger (XRPL) lending infrastructure, calling out the significance of the XLS-65 and XLS-66 amendments. XLS-65, referred to as the Single Asset Vault amendment, is designed to aggregate assets from multiple depositors, providing a foundational framework for forthcoming on-chain lending protocols.
Building on this, XLS-66 introduces a lending protocol that enables on-chain, fixed-term, uncollateralized loans by leveraging the pooled funds in the Single Asset Vault. This mechanism incorporates off-chain underwriting and risk management processes to evaluate borrower creditworthiness, while maintaining a peer-to-peer lending model with configurable features.
These amendments, the Lending Protocol and Single Asset Vault, are currently undergoing a voting process and represent the most significant push for institutional lending on XRPL to date.
Upcoming upgrades and ongoing development
Developers have confirmed that XRPL’s Lending Protocol is set to receive a version 1.1 update within the XRPL 3.4.0 release next week. The upgrade will deliver improvements over the previous version, Lending v1.0, and both the Lending Protocol and Single Asset Vault are expected to receive ongoing enhancements, expanding functionality incrementally over time.
One notable change is LendingProtocolV1_1, which introduces specific improvements and fixes, such as adding a ‘MemoData’ field to the ‘VaultDelete’ transaction, contributing to improved transaction traceability and flexibility.
Institutional partnerships and market trends
Recent momentum in the institutional lending space on XRPL has followed a collaboration between Ripple, Cicada Partners, and ClearPool, which was announced in August 2026. The partnership aims to bring robust institutional lending services to the XRPL ecosystem.
This week, ClearPool outlined its expansion strategy for the XRPL, describing the ledger as one of the most established networks for institutional lending and highlighting a considerable amount of institutional credit yet to be utilized.
ClearPool emphasized that the XRPL is among the most mature blockchain networks, yet “institutional credit is still waiting to be tapped,” signaling substantial growth potential in on-chain lending services.
With these technical improvements and new collaborations, the XRPL’s lending protocol infrastructure is positioning itself at the center of institutional finance innovation—mirroring the broader trend where traditional financial markets transition to blockchain-based solutions.
While traditional markets have depended on complex intermediaries, a notable shift is occurring as Wall Street turns to Web3. Investors increasingly use platforms such as 1stepSwap to hold tokenized shares of top U.S. companies, gold, and silver directly in crypto wallets. By transforming real-world assets into tokens and sourcing optimal prices automatically, these systems significantly reduce the role of intermediaries.
Ripple’s focus on institutional financing and the continued evolution of XRPL lending solutions suggest that on-chain credit offerings could become a central use case for XRP and its supporting ecosystem in the near future.
