While XRP finished 2025 with weak price performance, Ripple and the XRP ecosystem recorded an impressive level of progress throughout the year.
Notably, Ripple expanded its business through major acquisitions, secured regulatory clarity, and formed global partnerships within banking, payments, custody, and academia.
Meanwhile, XRP reached new levels of institutional adoption through ETFs, futures, and government recognition. Importantly, these developments made 2025 a major growth year for Ripple and XRP.
Ripple Expanded Through Strategic Acquisitions
- Ripple focused on building institutional-grade infrastructure throughout 2025, starting with a major acquisition early in the year. In April, the firm acquired Hidden Road for $1.25 billion, leading to the launch of Ripple Prime.
- The expansion continued in August when Ripple acquired Rail for $200 million.
- In October, Ripple moved into corporate finance by acquiring GTreasury for $1 billion.
- Ripple completed its acquisition strategy in November by purchasing Palisade for an undisclosed amount.
Ripple’s Global Partnerships
- Ripple complemented its acquisitions with partnerships in major financial regions. Regulatory progress began in March when Ripple secured approval from the Dubai Financial Services Authority, allowing licensed cross-border crypto payments in the UAE’s $40 billion market.
- The relationship grew stronger in June as Dubai authorities officially recognized Ripple USD (RLUSD) as a compliant, enterprise-grade stablecoin.
- Meanwhile, trust in RLUSD increased a month later after Ripple selected BNY Mellon as the primary custodian of its reserves.
- Ripple also pushed into real-world asset tokenization. Specifically, a collaboration with the Dubai Land Department and Ctrl Alt enabled the tokenization of real estate title deeds on the XRP Ledger.
- In addition, Ripple worked with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in July to support growth capital financing for maritime operations technology.
- After regulatory clarity emerged, Ripple extended its partnership with BDACS in August to offer XRP custody services.
Partnerships in Asia, Africa, and Europe
- Ripple expanded into Asia and Africa later in the year. Specifically, in August, the company signed a memorandum of understanding with SBI Remit and SBI Holdings to distribute RLUSD in Japan starting in 2026.
- Meanwhile, in September, Ripple launched RLUSD across Africa through Chipper Cash, VALR, and Yellow Card, aiming to reduce cross-border payment costs.
- Europe also entered the scene. Notably, Ripple expanded institutional custody services with BBVA in Spain and partnered with Securitize to allow instant exchanges between BlackRock’s BUIDL, VanEck’s VBILL, and RLUSD.
- On academic and regional partnerships, Ripple launched a Center for Digital Assets with UC Berkeley, partnered with Bahrain FinTech Bay to promote crypto adoption across the MENA region, and joined the University of San Francisco to explore blockchain use in public service and law.
- In December, AMINA Bank became the first European bank to adopt Ripple Payments for fiat-to-blockchain integration.
Ripple Secured Regulatory Wins and Product Launches
- Interestingly, Ripple also secured major regulatory and financial achievements throughout 2025. In July, Bluechip awarded RLUSD an A rating, ranking it as the safest stablecoin for enterprise use.
- Regulatory uncertainty ended in August when Ripple resolved its SEC lawsuit by paying a $125 million fine, securing clarity.
- In November, Ripple launched Ripple Prime’s spot prime brokerage services in the United States, supporting OTC trading in XRP and RLUSD.
- That same month, RLUSD surpassed a $1 billion market cap less than a year after its launch in December 2024.
- Meanwhile, investor confidence increased when Ripple raised $500 million at a $40 billion valuation in a funding round led by Fortress and Citadel.
- In December, Ripple received conditional approval to establish Ripple National Trust Bank and expanded RLUSD to Optimism, Base, Ink, and Unichain using Wormhole’s NTT framework.
XRP Achieved Record Institutional Adoption
- Moreover, XRP recorded a historic year for regulated investment products. Notably, ProShares launched an XRP futures ETF in late April. Volatility Shares followed in May with a CME-listed XRP futures ETF that recorded $37.7 million in initial trading volume.
- Leveraged exposure expanded in July through the ProShares Ultra XRP ETF, which offers 2x returns. Hybrid spot XRP exposure arrived in September when REX-Osprey launched the XRPR ETF.
- Meanwhile, in November, Canary Capital launched XRPC, the first pure spot XRP ETF, which recorded $59 million in first-day volume and $245 million in inflows.
- Later in November, additional spot ETFs from Franklin Templeton, Bitwise, Grayscale, 21Shares, and WisdomTree gained approval. These funds crossed $1 billion in inflows after 21 days. By the end of 2025, XRP ETFs had seen $1.17 billion in net inflows.
Additional Milestones for XRP
- Meanwhile, CME Group launched regulated XRP futures in May, and by August, these contracts became the fastest on CME to exceed $1 billion in notional value.
- Earlier in the year, an executive order added XRP to the U.S. Crypto Strategic Reserve.
Notably, despite XRP’s weak price action, which saw it close the year at $1.84, representing an 11.54% yearly decline, 2025 was a defining year of institutional growth for Ripple and XRP. Some pundits believe 2025 set the foundation for a decisive price surge in 2026.
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