Ripple Buys Two UK Firms to Teach Its $37B RWA Stack How to Actually Move 💤➡️🏃

Ripple disclosed strategic equity investments in two UK-based fintechs, Zilo and Licuido, on Monday, adding regulated transfer agency, issuance, and collateral-mobility tooling to its XRP Ledger (XRPL) capital markets infrastructure. Financial terms were not announced. UK-based Zilo has raised $58.7 million in total equity funding to date, according to data compiled by Traxcn. Licuido, also UK-based, is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

The investments target a recurring friction in tokenized fund operations: most tokenized fund positions sit idle after issuance. "Tokenization of assets is only the starting point: the real value lies in what can be done with a token, including buying, selling, and settling trades instantly, or using it as collateral to borrow, lend, or post margin," Nigel Khakoo, senior vice president at Ripple, said. Zilo provides the transfer-agency register layer, used by State Street, Citi, and Fidelity International. Licuido adds tokenization issuance and a marketplace that lets funds borrow against their own tokens. Licuido Markets operates under the license of Sapeno Partners LLP rather than holding its own FCA license.

The deals land one week after Aviva Investors launched a tokenized share class of its US Dollar Liquidity Fund on XRPL after receiving approval from the Central Bank of Ireland. Aviva Investors runs £246 billion in assets, and Bank of New York Mellon retains custody of the underlying assets. The moves follow Ripple's launch of Ripple Mint last month, a platform for institutions to access, mint, redeem, and manage Ripple USD (RLUSD), the company's US dollar-pegged stablecoin. Trades on the new stack are expected to settle in RLUSD rather than XRP, with XRP used for network fees of 0.00001 XRP per transaction.

XRPL ranks as the 11th-largest blockchain network by tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), holding $368 million, according to data provider RWA.xyz. Ethereum remains first at $17.1 billion in tokenized RWAs. Total RWA holders rose 50% over the past 30 days to 1.57 million, while the aggregate value of tokenized assets increased 1.5% to $37.3 billion.

$XRP traded near $1.07, down 1.25% on the day and roughly 63% year-on-year, giving it a market capitalization near $66.5 billion. Since launch, 14.4 million XRP, worth about $15 million at current prices, has been burned across 14 years and more than 4 billion transactions, with circulating supply at 99.986 billion of the original 100 billion tokens.