Ripple’s DriveWealth Deal Sharpens Questions About XRP’s Role in Its Business Growth

Ripple’s latest partnership adds brokerage services to its institutional business, while leaving an open question for XRP holders: will wider use of Ripple’s products translate into greater demand for XRP? The deal with DriveWealth is centered on stablecoin settlement, cross-border payments and custody. Those services could expand Ripple’s reach in financial infrastructure, but the announcement alone doesn’t establish how much activity will involve XRP.

The distinction matters. Ripple’s business can grow through services built around RLUSD, its stablecoin, and other financial products. XRP is a separate digital asset, even though RLUSD operates on the XRP Ledger. A link between the two exists at the network level; whether business expansion creates lasting demand for XRP depends on how the services are used and what role the token plays in those flows.

DriveWealth plans a staged rollout

Ripple and DriveWealth say the collaboration will bring stablecoin settlement, cross-border payment capabilities and digital asset custody to DriveWealth’s brokerage infrastructure. The rollout is set to begin in Europe, with the companies planning to extend services to the U.S. market later.

One described use case is funding and managing collateral accounts with stablecoins. DriveWealth clients will be able to use Ripple’s RLUSD on the XRP Ledger, with stablecoins convertible into cash almost instantly, according to the source. The firms are also exploring equity financing opportunities through Ripple Prime, which could extend their work beyond payment and settlement services.

Those details point to a practical focus: connecting brokerage infrastructure with digital asset settlement and custody. For clients, the intended function is to move value between stablecoin balances and cash as part of account and collateral management. For developers and financial firms, the arrangement may provide another route to connect existing services to blockchain-based settlement. The source does not specify expected transaction volumes, the number of clients involved, or a timeline for the U.S. extension.

Partnership growth meets holder frustration

The announcement also landed amid complaints from some XRP holders that Ripple’s expanding business activity has not been matched by the token’s market performance. Crypto influencer John Squire voiced that frustration in a post on X, saying the community had watched Ripple announce partnerships for years without seeing tangible benefits for XRP.

“The XRP community is tired,” Squire wrote. “We’ve spent years watching Ripple announce partnership after partnership. Yet morale across the XRP community is at rock bottom. We believe in the vision, but people need to see that progress reflected in XRP itself. Hope needs results, Brad.”

His criticism centers on a gap between company activity and token outcomes. A partnership can broaden a company’s services without guaranteeing that customers need its associated token. For XRP holders assessing this deal, the key question is therefore not simply whether DriveWealth adopts Ripple products, but whether the resulting activity creates a clear, sustained role for XRP.

The source reports XRP at $1.31, down roughly 5.1% over the preceding 24 hours and nearly 30% since the start of the year. It also says the token briefly reached $1.70 in August before losing those gains. These figures describe the market conditions cited in the article; they don’t establish that Ripple’s partnerships caused the price movements.

RLUSD sits at the center of the expansion

DriveWealth is part of a wider push to place RLUSD in institutional financial services. The source says Standard Chartered introduced custody services for RLUSD on the XRP Ledger earlier in the same week. It also cites a previous Ripple and LMAX Group financing deal worth $150 million, described as a move to expand institutional stablecoin adoption.

Ripple has also partnered with Privy, which is owned by Stripe, to bring embedded wallets to the XRP Ledger. That product is intended to make it simpler for developers to add blockchain-based services to applications. Together, these initiatives span settlement, custody, financing and wallet infrastructure, giving Ripple several ways to grow its business beyond crypto payments.

Yet stablecoin activity and XRP demand are not interchangeable measures. RLUSD can be used for settlement on the XRP Ledger, while XRP’s role depends on the specific transactions and services involved. The source provides no figures for RLUSD usage in the DriveWealth arrangement and does not say whether clients will need XRP to fund accounts, manage collateral or complete settlements.

For now, the DriveWealth agreement shows Ripple widening its institutional service offering, with an initial European rollout and a planned U.S. extension. The concrete measure to watch is how the service is implemented: which assets clients use, how settlement works in practice, and whether XRP has a defined function in that activity. Until those details emerge, the partnership adds evidence of Ripple’s commercial expansion, while the link to XRP’s market performance remains unresolved.