What do the ZILO and Licuido investments add?
Ripple has made strategic investments in UK-based ZILO and Licuido as it builds a more complete capital-markets stack around the XRP Ledger. Financial terms were not disclosed.
ZILO supplies transfer agency and fund administration technology to asset managers, custodians and transfer agents. Its systems support tokenized share classes, giving investment funds a way to manage investor records, subscriptions, redemptions and ownership changes as fund units move onchain.
Ripple expects the two companies to add regulated transfer agency, issuance and collateral mobility to its institutional infrastructure on the XRP Ledger. The investments are not simply bets on tokenization providers. They give Ripple access to operating capabilities that are needed after an asset is placed onchain, including administration, distribution and its later use in financing transactions.
Why does collateral mobility matter?
Tokenizing a fund does not automatically make its assets more useful. A tokenized share class can still sit idle if market participants cannot verify ownership, move it between approved parties or use it as collateral without lengthy manual checks.
Ripple is trying to connect those steps. Its planned model combines issuance, custody, collateral use, investment in multiple currencies and delivery-versus-payment settlement. Ripple USD, or RLUSD, would serve as the regulated cash leg, allowing the asset and payment sides of a transaction to settle together.
That structure targets several long-running capital-market costs. Collateral is often trapped inside separate custodians or legal entities, settlements can require several intermediaries, and funds may be unable to reuse eligible assets quickly. A regulated onchain system could reduce reconciliation work and shorten the time between issuance, transfer and collateral deployment.
Investor Takeaway
Ripple is building beyond token issuance. The commercial test is whether institutions use XRPL-based fund units in real settlement and collateral transactions, creating repeat demand for the ledger, custody services and RLUSD.
How do the deals fit Ripple’s institutional strategy?
The investments follow Ripple’s work with Aviva Investors, Franklin Templeton and DBS. In February, Ripple and Aviva Investors began exploring traditional fund tokenization on the XRP Ledger. Aviva later launched a tokenized share class of its US Dollar Liquidity Fund on XRPL after approval from the Central Bank of Ireland.
That launch gives Ripple a live fund product around which ZILO’s transfer agency systems and Licuido’s issuance and collateral tools could be used. It also gives Ripple a clearer institutional use case than simply recording token ownership on a public ledger.
Ripple also introduced Ripple Mint last month, giving institutions tools to mint, redeem and manage RLUSD. Together, Ripple Mint, the Aviva fund, ZILO and Licuido cover several parts of one transaction chain: creating the cash token, issuing the investment product, recording ownership and using the resulting asset in settlement or collateral arrangements.
The strategy could also increase RLUSD usage. Stablecoins used as settlement cash can generate recurring transaction demand even when investors are not actively trading cryptocurrencies. For Ripple, that may be more valuable over time than relying only on speculative activity in XRP.
Can XRPL compete in tokenized real-world assets?
The XRP Ledger remains much smaller than Ethereum in tokenized real-world assets. XRPL holds about $368 million of tokenized RWAs, ranking it as the 11th-largest blockchain for the sector, while Ethereum holds roughly $17.1 billion.
The gap shows that Ripple still has to attract more issuers, asset managers and distributors before XRPL becomes a leading institutional tokenization network. Its advantage may come from packaging regulated services around the ledger rather than competing only on blockchain capacity or transaction costs.
The wider market continues to grow. Tokenized real-world assets recently reached about $37.3 billion in value, while the number of holders rose 50% over 30 days to 1.57 million. The increase in holders was much faster than the rise in asset value, suggesting that distribution is widening even as large institutional allocations remain limited.
Ripple’s latest investments address that next stage. ZILO can support the investor and fund-administration layer, while Licuido can connect issuance with collateral use. The next measure of progress will be whether more regulated funds launch on XRPL and whether those assets move beyond custody into active financing and settlement flows.
