SBI Ripple Asia has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Doppler Finance to explore XRP-based yield infrastructure and real-world asset tokenization on the XRP Ledger, the companies said on December 17.
According to information shared with CryptoSlateCompanies said they will explore cooperation on yield infrastructure for XRP, which has no native staking, as well as RWA tokenization flows on XRPL.
The companies called it SBI Ripple Asia’s first collaboration with an XRPL-native protocol.
They have also appointed SBI Digital Markets as the institutional custodian with segregated custody.
Building regulated XRP yield rails for institutional adoption
According to the Financial Institutions Directory of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, SBI Digital Markets Pte. Ltd. is a licensee for Capital Markets Services which includes custody services and trading in capital markets products.
It is also listed as an exempt financial advisor, which strengthens the custody and compliance framework.
The structure points to a broader effort to make XRP “productive” by directing it toward yield sources while keeping the assets in regulated custody.
In practice, this shifts the conversation about products from on-chain staking mechanisms to balance sheet-friendly rails: custody separation, eligibility checks, disclosures, and return flow generation and reporting.
Doppler Head of Institutions Rox Park said the companies will explore yield and tokenization infrastructure on XRPL.
A spokesperson for SBI Ripple Asia described the work as expanding institutional access to on-chain products through compliance-aligned design.
The immediate market context is that XRPL’s DeFi footprint remains small compared to Ethereum-style venues, even as stablecoin and tokenization activity has increased.
XRPL’s DeFi Push: Institutional Entry, Early Traction, and Market Limits
According to DefiLlama’s XRPL dashboard At the time of the acquisition, XRPL had $64.4 million in total value locked (TVL) and $347 million in stablecoin market cap (up 13% in the last seven days).
RLUSD accounted for 78.90% of XRPL stablecoins, with DEX volume of $5.7 million over 24 hours and $35.8 million over seven days.
The XRPL page of RWA.xyz listed $212 million in distributed asset value, $239 million in represented asset value, 50 RWAs, and $327 million in stablecoin market cap (up 38% over 30 days).
It also showed $564 million in 30-day stablecoin transfer volume.
On The global vision of RWA.xyzThe value of the assets distributed was $18.74 billion and the total value of the stablecoin was $300.18 billion.
Ethereum alone showed over $12 billion in total RWA value and $171 billion in stablecoin market cap, a difference in magnitude that illustrates why a custodial-led institutional wedge matters to XRPL’s growth path.
Because XRP does not deploy naturally, any “XRP yield” wrapper is ultimately dependent on external return flows and the governance surrounding them.
The protocol describes expanding CeDeFi-style strategies and exploring options-based resources among other approaches.
How XRP can generate returns without native staking
A second route is a tokenized cash equivalent return, where XRP exposure can be combined with or rotated into tokenized T-bills or money market funds.
This is an area that Ripple has already seeded on XRPL through partners including tokenized treasury products that can mint and redeem using RLUSD.
A third route is lending primitives on XRPL itself, if and when they mature, including the proposed XRPL native lending primitive (XLS-66d) is discussed in the XRPL Standards process on GitHub.
As SBI Ripple Asia and Doppler’s work progresses from exploration to product, the adoption math can quickly scale against existing XRPL baselines.
The circulating supply is around 60.49 billion XRP and the spot price is around $1.91.
Even routing a fraction of circulating supply to a yield wrapper yields nine-figure assets under management:
| Share of circulating XRP routed to “yield wrapper” | XRP amount | Approximate assets under management (USD) |
|---|---|---|
| 0.1% | ~60.49 million XRP | ~$114 million |
| 0.5% | ~302.45 million XRP | ~$572 million |
| 1.0% | ~604.91 million XRP | ~$1.14 billion |
| 2.0% | ~1.21 billion XRP | ~$2.29 billion |
| 5.0% | ~3.02 billion XRP | ~$5.72 billion |
For companies that can package these flows with custody, compliance and reporting, the commercial incentive looks more like fee revenue than token beta.
Using a range model instead of pricing, an all-in envelope of 50-150 basis points on $1.14 billion in assets under management implies roughly $5.7 million to $17.1 million in annual revenue.
That is why regulated custody is not an afterthought in the announcement.
It is the product’s distribution channel and control plane that determine which investors can use it and under what disclosure regime.
Regulated custody, tokenization, and the revenue case behind XRP’s next phase
The timing also intersects with tokenization forecasts and payment demand that are not XRPL specific, but determine the addressable market.
According to a 2022 Ripple and BCG Tokenization Report (distributed via ADDX materials), tokenized RWA projections are $9.4 trillion in 2030 and $18.9 trillion in 2033, in addition to a cited 53% CAGR assumption.
McKinsey has separately argued that tokenization in financial services is moving from pilot to scale.
On the payment side is Artemis’ Stablecoin update for October 2025 reported that stablecoin payments increased from $6.0 billion in February to $10.2 billion in August, an increase of 70%.
It is also estimated that more than $136 billion has been settled since 2023, a backdrop that explains why tokenized cash, settlement stablecoins, and yield-bearing cash equivalents are coming together into a single product category.
Reducing regulations remains part of the solution
According to Reuters In its report on IOSCO’s tokenization work, the securities watchdog has warned that tokenization could introduce new risks or increase existing ones, including concerns about market integrity and investor protection, even if there are efficiency gains.
These concerns are directly related to how an institutional XRP yield pack would be evaluated.
They include what token holders legally own, how redemption and settlement work when the underlying asset is off-chain, whether strategy returns are verifiable, and how liquidity mismatches are handled when on-chain transfers can occur instantly, but off-chain service windows cannot.
If the return sources include derivatives or basic strategies, the gating problem becomes transparency in positions, counterparties, risk limits and liquidation waterfalls.
It also includes whether separation of custody involves reporting that complies with institutional controls.
XRPL’s own roadmap offers tools that align better with the ‘permissioning and control’ thesis than the ‘farm APY’ model.
XRPL.org documents Multifunctional tokenswhich add metadata and transfer control features designed for tokenization.
It also documents Deep Freeze, which provides controls at issuer level to limit frozen containers.
The roadmap also includes references for ledger attestations that can support authorized flows.
These primitives are relevant as SBI Ripple Asia and Doppler aim to build yield and RWA rails that can be used by institutions that require suitability checks, transfer restrictions and defined powers of issuers under regulatory agreements.
For now, the announcement commits the parties to investigation under an MOU and names SBI Digital Markets as the anchor for custody and compliance.
That leaves the following milestones for product design: scope of eligible investors, mix of revenue sources, disclosure and attestations, token form factor, redemption mechanisms, and how on-ledger controls are actually used in production rather than described in documentation.
