David Schwartz, the former chief technology officer at Ripple, has highlighted a shift in how the XRP Ledger is being utilized, moving beyond its initial focus on payments toward tokenized finance. In a recent discussion, he noted that the network is now supporting tokenized assets, with potential future applications including tokenized securities, stocks, money market funds, repurchase agreements, and loans. This evolution builds on the foundation laid by public blockchains, which enabled users to hold and transfer value without intermediaries. The XRP Ledger extends this model by allowing issued assets alongside its native XRP, facilitating the creation of stablecoins, tokenized funds, and other blockchain representations of real-world assets.
The expansion of Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin across multiple blockchain networks adds context to these developments. Through integration with Wormhole’s Native Token Transfers framework, RLUSD now operates on over 40 chains, including Ethereum layer-2 solutions like Base, Optimism, Ink, and Unichain, as well as the XRPL EVM sidechain. This broad availability provides developers with a reliable dollar-pegged asset necessary for tokenized finance activities such as payments, lending, and on-chain settlement. Since its launch in late 2024, RLUSD has achieved a market capitalization exceeding $1.7 billion, strengthening Ripple’s position in institutional blockchain applications.
Network data from Messari indicates growing adoption on the XRP Ledger. Daily transactions increased by 35.3% in the first quarter of 2026 compared to the previous quarter, while the market cap for real-world assets on XRPL surged 124.1% to $2.25 billion. RLUSD alone reached $340.3 million on XRPL by the end of the quarter, establishing it as the network’s dominant stablecoin. Notably, this activity growth occurred despite a decline in XRP’s market price, highlighting a divergence between ledger usage and token valuation.
Looking ahead, tokenized funds and loans represent the next frontier for XRPL. Schwartz’s comments point to a broader push to bring traditional finance products on-chain, though success will depend on factors like compliance infrastructure, custody solutions, liquidity provision, and the involvement of trusted issuers. A pilot project involving JPMorgan, Mastercard, Ripple, and Ondo Finance demonstrated cross-border tokenized Treasury redemption using XRPL and conventional banking systems, showing how the ledger can facilitate asset movement while maintaining integration with established financial rails. The key challenge now is converting such experiments into live financial products with genuine user demand.