Ripple is teaming up with Clearpool and Cicada Partners to bring institutional credit onto the XRP Ledger. The collaboration pairs RLUSD-based lending with credit underwriting and blockchain infrastructure built for regulated financial firms. Clearpool will build the lending infrastructure using its Lending Protocol and Single Asset Vault architecture.
Who's doing what
The partnership splits responsibilities across three firms. Ripple provides the ledger and the RLUSD stablecoin for lending. Clearpool brings its lending protocol and vault design. Cicada Partners handles credit underwriting — the part of lending that decides who gets a loan and at what terms.
How the lending works
The lending will run on the XRP Ledger, with RLUSD as the base asset. Clearpool's Single Asset Vault architecture lets each loan be isolated in its own vault, which limits risk to other assets. That's a structure designed for institutions that need to know exactly what they're exposed to.
Built for regulated firms
The platform is built specifically for regulated financial firms. That means compliance and reporting aren't afterthoughts — they're part of the design. The combination of underwriting and on-chain lending is meant to give these firms a way to extend credit without leaving the rails they're used to.
The bet on on-chain credit
This is a bet that institutional credit belongs on a public ledger. The XRP Ledger already handles payments, and now it's getting a credit layer. Whether that catches on depends on how many regulated firms are ready to lend on-chain — but the infrastructure is now in place.
