Ripple has backed a new institutional credit fund that will issue RLUSD working-capital loans to fintech and payments companies through the XRP Ledger, with Clearpool and Cicada Partners handling the lending infrastructure and credit management.
Summary
- Ripple is backing a new fund that will provide RLUSD working capital loans to fintech and payments companies.
- Cicada Partners will source borrowers and manage credit risk, while Clearpool is building the lending infrastructure.
- The fund is still being tested as the XRP Ledger lending and vault features await mainnet approval.
- Ripple will participate as a limited partner and will not guarantee investor losses.
CoinDesk reported on Aug. 21 that the fund will provide loans denominated in Ripple USD (RLUSD), while Cicada Partners will source borrowers, set lending terms and oversee credit risk. Clearpool is developing the infrastructure needed to create and manage the credit pools, with Ripple joining other institutions as an investor.
The companies did not disclose the planned size of the fund or the amount Ripple has committed.
Under the structure, Cicada will serve as the fund’s general partner and credit-pool manager. The firm said it has underwritten more than $860 million in credit, while Clearpool said its lending platform has facilitated more than $930 million in institutional loans since 2021.
Ripple will participate as a limited partner under the same terms offered to other investors, according to the report. Its involvement does not include a guarantee against losses, leaving borrower assessment and credit management under the structure established by Cicada.
RLUSD credit fund will finance working capital
Borrowers approved for the fund will receive RLUSD and repay their loans in the same stablecoin, giving the dollar-pegged token a direct role in the credit cycle.
The structure separates Ripple’s stablecoin from XRP’s function on the network. RLUSD will serve as the asset being lent, while XRP will continue to cover XRP Ledger transaction fees and the minimum reserve balances required for accounts.
For Ripple, the planned fund adds lending to existing uses for RLUSD across settlement and trading. A July report from Evernorth said RLUSD had already generated more than $2.5 billion in trading across XRP Ledger pairs since its public launch, with the RLUSD/XRP pair accounting for about $900 million over six months, as previously covered by crypto.news.
Evernorth also said RLUSD’s share of on-chain trading had climbed from below 1% to around 12% during 2026. The report put RLUSD supply on the XRP Ledger slightly above its Ethereum supply at the time.
The new credit product would give the stablecoin another use if the lending system reaches the XRP Ledger mainnet, allowing institutions to supply and borrow dollar-denominated liquidity without using XRP as the loan asset.
XRP Ledger lending still awaits mainnet activation
Clearpool’s integration is currently being tested on a development network because the two XRP Ledger features needed to run the product have not completed the network’s amendment process.
XLS-65, known as Single Asset Vaults, allows funds from multiple participants to be pooled into a vault managed under defined rules. XLS-66 introduces the lending protocol that can issue, service and repay fixed-term loans directly on the ledger.
The structure places credit underwriting outside the blockchain while using XRPL to handle the movement and accounting of funds. Under the proposed system, institutions can assess borrowers and negotiate loan terms off-chain before the lending protocol manages the resulting credit position on-chain.
The proposals entered validator consideration earlier this year. A June report on the protocol detailed how XLS-66 uses Single Asset Vault liquidity for fixed-term lending while leaving borrower underwriting and risk assessment to participating institutions.
Activation requires validator approval under the XRP Ledger amendment system. Until the required support threshold and voting conditions are met, the Clearpool and Cicada product cannot operate through the planned native lending functions on mainnet.
Developers and infrastructure providers can still work with the features on devnet, giving firms time to test applications before a possible activation.
Security work has focused on XRP Ledger credit features
The lending code has undergone additional security work ahead of its proposed mainnet deployment.
RippleX developers and Common Prefix used formal verification to examine the planned lending system earlier this year. The June formal verification review covered both XLS-66 and XLS-65, with the work designed to identify edge cases that conventional software testing could miss in financial infrastructure implemented directly at the Layer 1 level.
The review examined the fixed-term lending model, which uses pooled vault liquidity and relies on off-chain credit assessment for uncollateralized borrowers. The model differs from lending systems where collateral and automatic liquidation rules handle most borrower risk directly through application-level smart contracts.
Security firm Halborn subsequently completed a re-audit of the XRP Ledger Lending Protocol. Its June lending protocol re-audit found no critical or high-risk issues after reviewing changes linked to fixed-term loans and Single Asset Vaults.
Halborn identified five findings in total: one medium-severity issue, two low-severity issues and two informational findings. The firm said all reported findings were addressed, with some resolved by Ripple’s engineering team and others accepted or acknowledged following review.
One medium-severity finding involved a way for loan interest to bypass a maximum-assets limit applied to a vault, according to the audit. Halborn’s engagement covered transaction checks, accounting rules, state consistency, parameter limits and access controls across the protocol.
XRP has rallied as the credit plan emerges
XRP has gained almost 20% over the past 24 hours to trade around $1.30 and is up about 30% over seven days, according to CoinDesk, placing the token among the strongest performers during the latest crypto market rally.
The advance followed a sharp move across major cryptocurrencies after the U.S. Treasury announced an expansion of its long-dated bond buyback program. The Treasury plans to increase the cap on individual operations from $2 billion to at least $4 billion beginning Sept. 9, a move that initially pulled long-term yields lower and weakened the dollar.
Bitcoin climbed above $72,000 during the market move, while XRP recorded a 10.4% gain on Wednesday before extending its advance into Thursday. Decrypt reported that XRP’s weekly rise reached roughly 30% after the token had traded below $1 the previous week.
XRP exchange-traded fund inflows fell from $5.81 million to $2.35 million during part of the rally, while Bitcoin ETFs attracted about $517 million, according to the same report. XRP futures open interest had also fallen 11.31% from its rally-day level as of Aug. 20.
