Ripple has announced strategic investments in Zilo and Licuido as part of a broader initiative to expand its presence in tokenized capital markets. The deals are designed to enable the use of tokenized funds as collateral from the point of issuance, bringing regulated transfer agency, issuance, and collateral mobility infrastructure to the XRP Ledger [The Block] [Cointelegraph].
The move comes as Ripple seeks to bridge traditional finance infrastructure with blockchain-based settlement. By integrating Zilo and Licuido's capabilities, the company aims to facilitate the movement of tokenized assets as collateral across different platforms and use cases. The infrastructure additions target the entire lifecycle of tokenized funds, from initial issuance through to their deployment as collateral in various financial applications. This regulated framework addresses institutional requirements for transfer agency services while maintaining the efficiency benefits of distributed ledger technology.
Parallel to these equity investments, Ripple's ecosystem has gained a new decentralized finance primitive that allows XRP holders to access liquidity without liquidating their holdings. Flare's FXRP has been approved as collateral in a $280 million RLUSD lending vault, enabling XRP holders to borrow Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin on Ethereum without selling their cryptocurrency [Decrypt].
This development connects the XRP ecosystem to Ethereum's lending markets, creating a cross-chain collateral pathway. RLUSD serves as the borrowing asset in this arrangement, while FXRP represents a wrapped version of XRP that meets the collateral requirements of the lending protocol. The $280 million vault size indicates significant capacity for XRP-backed borrowing activity on the Ethereum network, potentially attracting users who wish to maintain exposure to XRP price appreciation while accessing dollar-denominated liquidity.
The dual announcements highlight Ripple's multi-pronged approach to tokenized capital markets. While the Zilo and Licuido investments focus on the institutional infrastructure for issuing and managing tokenized funds, the FXRP collateral integration addresses retail and DeFi access to XRP-backed liquidity. Both initiatives center on collateral mobility—the ability to use digital assets as security for loans or other financial instruments across different blockchains and market structures. This symmetry suggests a deliberate strategy to position XRP and RLUSD as core components in both permissioned institutional workflows and permissionless DeFi protocols.
The convergence of regulated tokenization infrastructure with cross-chain lending mechanisms positions Ripple to capture value from both traditional asset tokenization and native crypto collateral markets. By enabling XRP to serve as collateral for RLUSD loans on Ethereum while simultaneously building the rails for tokenized fund collateralization on the XRP Ledger, the company is creating interoperability between conventional capital markets and decentralized finance protocols.