Key Takeaways:
- Ripple, Clearpool and Cicada are introducing institutional lending to the XRP Ledger.
- Since 2021, Clearpool has arranged over $930 million in institutional loans.
- RLUSD will provide credit for fintech, payment providers and crypto enterprises.
Ripple is moving deeper into onchain credit through a new partnership with Clearpool and Cicada Partners, targeting lending backed by real business activity rather than speculative DeFi strategies.
— Cicada Partners (@cicadacredit) August 20, 2026
The initiative combines Clearpool’s lending infrastructure, Cicada’s credit underwriting and Ripple’s investment in a credit fund on the XRP Ledger (XRPL).
A New Credit Layer for XRPL
Clearpool will build the lending structure with XRPL’s native lending protocol (XLS-66) and Single Asset Vaults (XLS-65). The architecture features semi-autonomous independent credit markets whose conditions of lending are clearly set.
Since 2021, Clearpool has facilitated over $930,000 worth of institutional loans and has built up extensive experience on XRPL, making it a trusted lender to expand its model.
Cicada Partners will be in charge of the credit side of the deal. The firm has underwritten over $860 million and will source borrowers, develop loan terms, write loan terms, and will oversee credit performance once the financing is deployed.
Read More: Ripple Prime Secures $275M Funding Boost to Power Its Expanding U.S. Crypto Business
Ripple Takes an Investor Role
With investors, Ripple will be a limited partner in the credit fund. The company will perform on equal terms with the other players rather than as a place where losses are thrown upon.
The capital is anticipated to be channeled at companies from the fintech sector, payment providers, and crypto service businesses relying on stablecoins to revolutionize their working capital requirements.
RLUSD will serve as a credit asset for the program, which will also enjoy a direct link to Ripple’s stablecoin ecosystem. The borrowers can get liquidity for stablecoins and lenders can still be active in XRPL infrastructure.
Read More: Ripple Extends NYU Abu Dhabi Blockchain Partnership Through 2027 for XRP Ledger
Real-World Yield Moves into Crypto
The partner plans are aimed at one of the biggest market shortcomings in today’s DeFi world, where the yield is driven primarily by trading-related mechanisms like arbitrage, looping, basis trading and points beside engaging with operating businesses.
Cicada believes that these market mechanisms generate approximately 98% of the yield on DeFi. The new model focuses rather on the return on loans to companies with a realistic need for financing.
That separation might make it simpler to encourage institutional involvement. Lenders can evaluate borrowers, set terms of the loan and track repayment, rather than flatterly following the volatile incentives in the crypto market.
There are also a number of controls for institutional users of XRPL. Permitted Domains, Credentials and Clawback can facilitate participant verification and asset controls, the lending architecture of the proposed can deal with loans, repayments and liquidity accounting on the ledger level.
Clearpool is still working to implement andLP test the integration in XRPL Devnet. Signs of this process should be demonstrated and explained technically including the creation of the credit pool, borrowing and repayment.
However, the Lending Protocol and Single Asset Vault changes still must pass the community voting process and have not yet been deployed on the XRPL Mainnet, and thus, the proposed institutional credit system has not started at this time.
