On June 26, Ripple announced that cross-chain protocol Wormhole is now integrated with the XRP Ledger (XRPL) mainnet and its EVM sidechain. This collaboration allows XRPL-native assets — including XRP, IOUs, and Multi-Purpose Tokens — to move across more than 35 blockchain ecosystems, while developers can interact with smart contracts across chains, unlocking greater functional breadth for financial applications.
Integration Details and Capabilities
Wormhole, a leading cross-chain interoperability protocol, enables cross-chain messaging, asset transfers, and multichain token issuance. Ripple stated: 'This will support additional use cases across DeFi, institutional on-chain finance, and real-world assets (RWAs).' Since 2020, Wormhole has facilitated over $60 billion in cross-chain volume, more than one billion cross-chain messages, and over 200 applications. Its client roster includes top financial institutions such as BlackRock, Apollo, and Securitize.
Strategic Importance for Institutional Finance and Interoperability
Ripple CTO David Schwartz emphasized: 'If you want real mass adoption, interoperability is essential. The infrastructure has to be there, not just on one chain, but across them.' With this integration, tokens natively issued on the XRP Ledger can move between blockchain networks while maintaining native issuance and control, providing institutions with a compliant, efficient multi-chain asset environment. XRPL previously collaborated with interoperability protocols like Axelar; Wormhole's addition further strengthens its modular infrastructure approach.
Impact on the XRP Ecosystem
Known for its compliance focus and high throughput, XRP Ledger offers native tokenization, liquidity provisioning, and fast settlement. The Wormhole integration expands XRPL's asset liquidity into a broader multi-chain world, potentially attracting more institutional-grade DeFi projects and RWA issuers. Market analysts view this as a positive development for XRP's cross-chain use cases and value capture.