Ripple backs institutional RLUSD credit fund with Clearpool, Cicada Ripple has joined forces with Clearpool and Cicada Partners to back a new institutional credit fund that will issue working-capital loans denominated in Ripple USD (RLUSD) on the XRP Ledger (XRPL), CoinDesk reported Aug. 21. How the fund will work - Cicada Partners will act as the fund’s general partner and credit-pool manager: sourcing borrowers, setting loan terms and handling credit risk. Cicada says it has underwritten more than $860 million in credit to date. - Clearpool is building the on-ledger infrastructure to create and manage pooled lending vaults. The firm says its platform has facilitated more than $930 million in institutional loans since 2021. - Ripple is participating as a limited partner on the same terms as other investors; the company has not disclosed the size of the fund or its own commitment and will not guarantee losses. Borrower assessment and credit decisions remain with Cicada. Loans and token roles - Approved borrowers will receive RLUSD and must repay in the same stablecoin, giving RLUSD a direct role in the credit cycle and expanding its use beyond settlement and trading. - The arrangement separates RLUSD from XRP’s primary functions on XRPL: RLUSD will be the loan asset while XRP continues to cover transaction fees and minimum reserve balances. Why it matters for XRPL lending - The product is being tested on devnet because two XRPL amendments required for native on-ledger lending — XLS-65 (Single Asset Vaults) and XLS-66 (the lending protocol for fixed-term loans) — have not yet been activated on mainnet. XLS-65 enables multiple participants to pool funds into rule-governed vaults; XLS-66 enables issuing, servicing and repaying fixed-term loans on ledger. - The planned architecture keeps credit underwriting off-chain (institutions assess and negotiate terms) while using XRPL for movement and accounting of funds once loans are issued on-chain. Security and audit work - RippleX developers and Common Prefix performed formal verification on XLS-65 and XLS-66 in June to find edge cases that conventional testing might miss for Layer 1 financial infrastructure. - Security firm Halborn completed a re-audit of the lending protocol in June and reported no critical or high-risk issues. It found five items in total — one medium, two low and two informational — all of which were addressed or acknowledged. The medium finding involved a scenario where loan interest could bypass a vault’s maximum-assets limit. Adoption context for RLUSD - The planned fund would add lending as a clear use case for RLUSD. A July Evernorth report said RLUSD had generated more than $2.5 billion in trading across XRPL pairs since its public launch, with the RLUSD/XRP pair accounting for roughly $900 million over six months. Evernorth also reported RLUSD’s share of on-chain trading rose from under 1% to about 12% during 2026 and that RLUSD supply on XRPL was slightly above its supply on Ethereum at the time. Activation timeline and next steps - XLS-65 and XLS-66 are under validator consideration; mainnet activation requires meeting XRPL’s amendment approval thresholds. Meanwhile, developers and infrastructure providers can continue testing on devnet. Clearpool’s integration remains in devnet testing until the amendments are approved. Market backdrop - XRP has surged recently, gaining roughly 20% in 24 hours to about $1.30 and up roughly 30% over seven days, according to CoinDesk. The broader crypto rally followed the U.S. Treasury’s announcement it would expand its long-dated bond buyback program — boosting risk assets and pushing Bitcoin above $72,000. - During the move, XRP’s weekly rise hit roughly 30% after trading below $1 the prior week, Decrypt reported. XRP ETF inflows eased from $5.81 million to $2.35 million during part of the rally while Bitcoin ETFs drew about $517 million. XRP futures open interest fell about 11.3% from the rally-day level as of Aug. 20. The launch marks a notable step toward native, dollar-denominated institutional lending on XRPL — if validators approve XLS-65 and XLS-66 — and could broaden RLUSD’s utility across settlement, trading and credit use cases. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news