Ripple has integrated staking features for Ethereum and Solana into its custody services for institutions, expanding its scope from asset safekeeping to providing value-added services—an increasingly standard expectation among major investors.
The new features are implemented through a partnership with Figment, a provider of staking infrastructure tailored for institutions. As a result, Ripple Custody clients can offer staking on leading proof-of-stake (PoS) networks without managing validator operations themselves.
This solution aims for operational simplicity while maintaining institutional-level control standards—suitable for banks, custodians, and licensed asset managers seeking staking yields without exposing staking activities outside their internal governance frameworks.
This move also highlights the structural difference between XRP and PoS assets typically held by organizations. Ethereum and Solana can generate protocol-based rewards, whereas XRP currently lacks a native staking mechanism.
In a context where custodians compare crypto services to familiar models like securities lending or cash yields, this distinction has practical significance.
Figment and Institutional Staking Standards
Ripple’s choice of Figment reflects institutional priorities in deploying staking: clear responsibility separation, operational assurance, and auditable control frameworks.
Figment states that Ripple values its experience serving over 1,000 institutional clients, its non-custodial architecture, and its focus on managed entities.
This architecture is especially important because many institutional investors want a clear separation between asset custody and validator operation. They need transparency about who controls the assets, who manages the infrastructure, and how risks are monitored.
Staking also involves operational risks, including validator performance requirements and slashing risks. For regulated organizations, the question isn’t just “can we earn yields,” but “does that yield pass audit and compliance standards?”
Figment emphasizes trust standards like the Node Operator Risk Standard (NORS), which assesses node operators based on security, resilience, and governance—criteria aligned with traditional financial due diligence processes.
Ripple aims to make staking an integrated feature within custody workflows rather than a standalone infrastructure project. This approach aligns with the custody market trend, where organizations prefer to reduce provider fragmentation and consolidate services within a controlled, centralized operational model.
XRP Lacks Native Staking; XRPL Not Yet in Deployment Phase
Adding staking for Ethereum and Solana also clarifies what XRP still lacks: protocol-level rewards.
In custody, this means the platform can only store, transfer, and report on XRP, but cannot offer periodic on-chain yields based on the asset’s native mechanism.
Meanwhile, Ripple’s ecosystem is discussing staking possibilities on the XRP Ledger (XRPL). However, according to RippleX developers, designing staking on XRPL requires two core elements: sustainable reward sources and fair distribution mechanisms.
Currently, XRPL employs a transaction fee burn instead of distributing rewards to validators, and validator trustworthiness is based on performance rather than staked capital. This means that if staking is implemented, XRPL would need to adjust its economic structure—not just activate rewards.
Notably, the XRPL amendments tracking system has no proposals for staking in development or voting stages. This indicates that staking on XRPL has not yet entered the deployment phase.
For institutional clients, this practical difference is significant: yields from Ethereum and Solana are available, measurable, and operational today; while native XRP staking remains a topic under discussion, with economic models still incomplete.
Capital Flows into XRP Remain Strong
While expanding custody products, investment products linked to XRP are seeing stronger capital inflows compared to Ethereum and Solana.
Recent weekly data shows XRP-related investment products attracted $63.1 million, while Solana garnered $8.2 million, and Ethereum $5.3 million. In contrast, Bitcoin-focused products experienced outflows of $264 million.
These figures reflect a positive reallocation trend, as investors adjust their positions based on price movements rather than just accumulation.
Capital flow data reveals a familiar pattern in institutional custody: investment demand for a token can spike, but the completeness of the accompanying service ecosystem is a different matter.
In other words, interest in XRP and the maturity of its service ecosystem are two separate issues.
Institutional DeFi Strategy Still Places XRP at the Center
Ripple affirms that adding staking for other networks does not diminish XRP’s role in its long-term strategy.
According to its recent “Institutional DeFi” roadmap, XRPL is positioned as a high-performance blockchain for tokenized finance, with compliance tools and programmable features aimed at regulated use cases.
Ripple describes XRP’s role as including reserve management, transaction fee payments (which are burned), and auto-bridging mechanisms in forex and lending flows.
The roadmap also mentions upcoming features like on-chain privacy, licensed markets, and institutional lending.
This positioning indicates XRP is viewed as an infrastructure asset rather than an income-generating asset.
In this model, yields from Ethereum and Solana attract institutions into the custody ecosystem, while XRPL is oriented as a platform for compliant on-chain activities. XRP acts as a connecting asset for bridging operations, collateral flows, and transaction fees.
