Ripple has presented its vision for institutional decentralized finance (DeFi) on the XRP Ledger (XRPL), setting out a plan that extends through 2025. Chief Technology Officer (CTO) David Schwartz, widely known online as “JoelKatz,” unveiled the roadmap on Tuesday, February 25, via X, highlighting the company’s ambitions to strengthen the XRPL as a go-to blockchain for regulated financial applications.
“It’s here — Ripple’s roadmap for institutional DeFi on the XRP Ledger in 2025,” Schwartz wrote. “As roadmaps go, I (personally) think this one is pretty great — outlining a clear direction with use cases and features (available and to be proposed) of what Ripple will be focused on contributing to the XRPL this year. Welcome thoughts, feedback and memes. Maybe prayers.”
Ripple’s 2025 Roadmap: Institutional DeFi On XRPL
In a blog post, Ripple states that “The XRP Ledger (XRPL) meets this challenge head-on, building on its core strengths—a native DEX, low fees, rapid settlement times, and a compliance-friendly architecture—to create an advanced institutional DeFi ecosystem.” The post highlights that several pivotal upgrades are already live, while others are undergoing testing or will appear on the 2025 roadmap.
Among the offerings currently on the mainnet is an Automated Market Maker (AMM) tied to the XLS-30 standard, which integrates directly with the XRPL’s Central Limit Order Book (CLOB). According to the blog, “XRPL’s Automated Market Maker (AMM), built on the XLS-30 standard, introduces protocol-level liquidity for tokenized assets, stablecoins, and real-world assets (RWAs).” The AMM also offers a continuous auction feature aimed at mitigating impermanent loss, a function that could prove attractive to institutional liquidity providers concerned with preserving capital efficiency.
XRPL’s newly added support for decentralized identifiers (DIDs) under XLS-40 is another live feature that Ripple views as foundational for identity and compliance. The company underscores the importance of self-sovereign identity in regulated environments and cites the potential for “Privacy-Preserving KYC & AML Compliance” and “Permissioned Finance & Access Control” as key benefits.
The blog states, “By leveraging DIDs, institutions can enhance security, privacy, and compliance while maintaining decentralization. This lays the groundwork for permissioned access to financial markets, identity verification for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), and broader institutional adoption of DeFi.”
Looking ahead, Ripple’s roadmap outlines quarterly milestones for 2025. The blog post divides this development track into four distinct segments (Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4) to show how the XRPL will evolve. In Q1, Ripple expects to introduce or propose features such as LP Token Freeze and Deep Freeze, which are tools that allow entities to pause or revoke tokens under specific conditions. The official text references “Simulate Transaction” and “Permissioned Domains” for Q1 as well, describing them as new ways to test out ledger operations before finalizing them on-chain and to create membership-based environments on the XRPL for regulated institutions.
For Q2, the blog indicates a focus on “Token Escrow, Account Permissions, Batch Transactions,” and a “Permissioned DEX.” Ripple’s developers assert that these features will refine how digital assets are held, managed, and traded in compliance-aware settings. The post explains how this approach can operate without sacrificing decentralization: “This approach allows institutions to engage in decentralized trading while adhering to regulatory requirements, such as Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and KYC rules, all within a decentralized framework.”
Q3 introduces a set of larger-scale updates such as “Single Asset Vault,” a “Lending Protocol,” and “MPT DEX Integration,” referring to multi-purpose tokens (MPTs) that operate somewhere between traditional fungible tokens and NFTs. MPTs represent financial products that share certain attributes, yet still require unique metadata to differentiate them (for example, two similar bonds with distinct maturity dates). The lending protocol is especially noteworthy because it will allow financial institutions to tokenize and manage loans on the XRPL, with the blog noting that “Institutional DeFi requires robust, scalable, and secure financial products,” and that a native lending protocol can reduce reliance on third-party intermediaries.
By Q4, Ripple plans to launch further amendments under a “TBA” label, meaning that the final details of the features in the fourth quarter are still to be determined. Beyond these immediate targets, Ripple devs are also working on “Extensions,” which can attach small pieces of code directly to existing XRPL primitives, as well as preparing for a full smart contract devnet later in the year. The blog clarifies that “Native Programmability” will come in measured steps that maintain the efficiency and reliability of the ledger, initially through “Smart Escrows” and gradually expanding toward full-fledged contracts on the mainnet if the community approves.
In parallel with the on-ledger innovations, an XRPL EVM Sidechain is planned to go live on mainnet in Q2 2025. This sidechain is described in the blog as a complementary solution, rather than “a replacement for mainnet programmability.” Ripple hopes to attract Ethereum-based developers and protocols to the XRPL ecosystem through a cross-chain bridge, allowing Solidity-based dApps to leverage XRPL’s liquidity and user base. According to the blog, “The XRPL EVM sidechain serves a complementary role to the XRPL, but is not a replacement for mainnet programmability.”
Ripple plans to discuss these proposals and the broader institutional DeFi trajectory at XRPL Apex 2025, where David Schwartz will dive into the technical roadmap in greater detail. The company notes in the blog that “these developments reflect ongoing collaboration across the network to enhance security, efficiency, and institutional-grade financial tools.”
At press time, XRP traded at $2.29
