XRP is making a quiet run at institutional finance, according to crypto commentator Pumpius, who pointed to five major protocol upgrades on the XRP Ledger in the last two quarters. The network is now processing 71 million transactions per year — a 65% jump from 43 million — driven by activity from Bitstamp, Ripple, Justtoken, Braza Bank, and VERT, according to data from Evernorth. Meanwhile, spot ETFs for XRP are launching, CME futures open interest has hit $1 billion, and Société Générale is integrating its digital euro onto the XRPL network. XRP was trading around $1.45 at the time of writing, down in the last 24 hours.
What the institutional stack looks like
The XRPL isn't just handling payments anymore. The network now hosts a native lending protocol, a Permissioned DEX for compliant trading, token escrow services, and native zero-knowledge (ZK) proof technology. Moody's-related Wall Street debt has also been issued on the ledger — a concrete sign that traditional finance is testing the rails. “XRP is quietly taking over institutional finance,” Pumpius stated.
Transaction growth and the players behind it
The 65% increase in annual transactions — from 43 million to 71 million — didn't happen by accident. Evernorth's data points to a handful of active entities: Bitstamp, Ripple, Justtoken, Braza Bank, and VERT. These names suggest a mix of exchange settlement, tokenization, and cross-border payment use cases that are pushing volume higher.
Layer-2 proposals on the table
Not everything is smooth sailing. XRPL validator Vet has proposed layer-2 solutions to run on top of the layer-1 network, aiming to boost efficiency with features like a derivatives exchange and rollups. But Vet also flagged several challenges: memory bloat, bandwidth usage, and timer contention. These are real technical bottlenecks that need solving before a full L2 ecosystem can operate at scale.
With spot ETFs launching and CME futures open interest already at $1 billion, the market is pricing in more institutional flow. The Société Générale digital euro integration is a tangible test of how a regulated bank uses the XRPL for a central bank digital currency-style application. The next question is whether the validator community can resolve those layer-1 scaling issues — and whether more Wall Street debt issuers follow Moody's lead.
