How This Development Just Unlocked A $100 Billion Market For XRP

Crypto pundit Diana has drawn attention to plans to launch native XRP lending on the XRP Ledger, which treasury firm Evernorth will be heavily involved in. This is expected to unlock up $100 billion in idle capital as investors seek yield from their holdings. 

Native XRP Lending Plans To Unlock $100 Billion In Idle Capital

In an X post, Diana stated that Evernorth is officially launching XRP lending on the XRPL, which would unlock $100 billion in capital. The treasury firm plans to bring native lending on the Ledger through the proposed XLS-66 amendment. She added that there are already 473 million of the altcoin in the treasury and that there is a vision to unlock up to $100 billion in dormant capital through yield-generating activity. 

Further commenting on what this native lending entails, Diana noted that it is built directly into the Ledger and will feature single-asset vaults, fixed-term and fixed-rate loans, automated on-chain repayments through smart contracts, and zero-knowledge proofs for confidentiality. Furthermore, this native lending feature eliminates the need to bridge, wrap XRP, or face custody risks just to earn yield on one’s holdings. 

Diana highlighted how this could draw more institutional investors as they can finally deploy liquidity without leaving the Ledger or relying on external smart contracts. The pundit noted that XLS-66 is not yet live and is currently in the validator voting phase. The proposed amendment needs an 80% supermajority vote to get activated. However, this provides insight into what lies ahead for the the Ledger, with yield on the horizon. 

It is worth noting that at the moment, investors have had to bridge their assets to other networks, such as the Flare network. Last year, Flare launched earnXRP, which is the first fully on-chain yield product denominated in the altcoin.

Why It Matters To Earn Yield Natively On The Ledger

Evernorth Chief Business Officer Sagar explained that earning yield on the Ledger rather than bridging to other networks matters because bridging can trigger a taxable event in most jurisdictions. He also highlighted the risk of trusting “unproven” smart contracts on other networks with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. On the other hand, the XLS-66 protocol relies on the Ledger’s security, and with native lending, there is no wrapping or new risk surface. 

As such, he is confident that institutional investors will be more willing to participate once native lending is activated. He also remarked that he is excited about this feature because lending makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts, including XRP payments, which are currently carried out on the Ledger. 

At the time of writing, the altcoin’s price is trading at around $1.34, up in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.