Ripple focuses on institutional finance as XRP Ledger event in Seoul draws 5,500 participants

Institutional adoption and capital market innovation

Ripple President Monica Long addressed how banks and other large financial institutions are increasingly moving their operations on-chain. Long highlighted the use of XRPL for enabling rapid collateral mobility, advancing tokenization of assets, and upgrading payment infrastructure. She identified these changes as key drivers for integrating blockchain technology into core financial workflows.

The panel, led by Ripple’s Senior Director of Ecosystem Growth Christina Chan, explored how XRP’s utility is being leveraged beyond retail holders, expanding into the world of institutional finance. Chan and Long discussed the significant progress Ripple has made in building bridges between XRPL and traditional financial services.

Monica Long explained the industry’s ongoing transition: “With regulatory clarity strengthening, financial institutions are shifting from blockchain experiments to live, on-chain infrastructure, especially for real-time collateral mobility and cross-border payments powered by tokenized assets and stablecoins.”

XRPL growth projections and ecosystem expansion

Long projected exponential growth for the XRPL over the coming year, emphasizing the role of regional accelerators like the Korea Financial Innovation Program and collaboration with leading financial institutions. She indicated that the market for tokenized real-world assets (RWA) could expand from $6 billion to $30 billion, while transaction volume driven by AI agents could rise from 10 million to 100 million.

These forecasts reflect a broader industry trend toward embracing digitized, on-chain models for traditional assets and financial products.

Technical upgrades: Confidential transfers and AI infrastructure

Ripple’s Senior Director of Engineering, Ayo Akinyele, presented advancements being built into the XRPL for developers, enterprises, and end users. He emphasized the network’s commitment to security, privacy, and transparency as it scales to support institutional adoption.

One of the main challenges identified for bringing traditional finance on-chain is the need for confidential transactions. To address this, the XRPL is launching “confidential transfers” using advanced Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) to ensure privacy without sacrificing transparency.

Mini dictionary: Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) are cryptographic protocols that allow one party to prove to another that a statement is true without revealing the underlying information, enabling private verification of transactions on blockchains.

AI agents are increasingly active on the XRP Ledger, now surpassing 11 million transactions. Ripple is developing new infrastructure specifically for these automated agents, including verifiable identities, strict rules for execution and permissions, as well as advanced smart wallets designed for rapid settlement of both XRP and stablecoins.

The event highlighted that “complete on-chain transparency has historically been a barrier for finance, but confidential transfer technology powered by ZKPs is being deployed to address these concerns and accelerate institutional participation.”