Evernorth, a treasury firm focused on XRP and backed by prominent investors including Ripple, Kraken, Pantera Capital, and SBI Holdings, is informing institutional investors that real banks are already utilizing XRP. The company asserts that the next 18 months will be defined not by the occurrence of adoption news, but by its scale and regulatory framework.
XRP Ledger Activity Surges
Evernorth’s claim is specific: daily transactions on the XRP Ledger have surged to nearly 3 million, a significant increase from approximately 1 million in mid-2025. Among the most active participants on the network are Bitstamp, Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin, and Braza Bank. While this volume is a concrete figure, its implications for broader banking utility remain a subject of discussion.
The underlying tension is structural. Reports indicate that XRP Ledger transaction volume has tripled in roughly 12 months. Furthermore, at least one major European bank has reportedly deployed its regulated euro stablecoin on XRP, selecting it as one of four public chains for this purpose.
However, XRP’s on-chain metrics and exchange flows present a more nuanced picture, raising questions about whether this volume represents sustained banking infrastructure or a concentrated surge driven by a limited number of known entities. The marketing narrative and the on-chain data are not contradictory, but they do not fully align.
Institutional Adoption vs. Pilot Programs
Evernorth’s chief executive, Asheesh Birla, has stated that XRP’s long-term value will stem from its use by banks and businesses as working capital, rather than from retail trading. This perspective is significant as it sets a specific standard for evidence: bank-originated settlement volume, not speculative demand or ETF flows. By this measure, the available data offers partial support and remains aspirational in some areas.
The reported increase in XRPL daily transactions to nearly 3 million is documented and verifiable. The prominent entities driving this traffic—Bitstamp, RLUSD, and Braza Bank—are identifiable financial institutions, not anonymous wallets or entities engaged in wash trading.
In May 2026, Evernorth highlighted a tokenized U.S. Treasury redemption that involved Mastercard, J.P. Morgan’s Kinexys, Ondo Finance, and Ripple, utilizing the XRPL as the common settlement layer. This transaction facilitated Ripple’s receipt of USD proceeds in Singapore outside of standard banking hours. Evernorth described XRP in this instance as “settlement infrastructure in one of the most significant cross-institutional blockchain transactions to date.” This transaction did occur and is not fabricated.
Geographic Concentration and Future Developments
While these events are real, the data does not yet definitively confirm whether they represent systematic banking adoption or high-profile pilot programs. Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity service has been operational since at least 2018, using XRP as a bridge asset for cross-border transactions in regions such as the Middle East and Southeast Asia. The volume in these corridors is substantial but geographically concentrated, differing from the global banking network suggested by broader narratives.
In 2026, institutional-sized transfers on the XRPL have remained stable. However, Chainalysis data suggests that these transfers are increasingly competing with USDC and wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) projects for a share of institutional settlement flows.
The XRPL protocol itself is undergoing upgrades designed to address these specific challenges. Pending amendments include Token Escrow, a Permissioned DEX, and Restricted Environments, which are compliance infrastructures specifically developed to provide regulated institutions with whitelisted venues and escrowed settlement flows on-chain.
The proposed XLS-66 XRP Lending Protocol aims to embed single-asset XRP vaults, fixed-term loans, and ZK-enhanced privacy directly into the ledger, eliminating the need for external smart contracts and bridges. Validators are currently voting on XLS-66, which requires an 80% supermajority for activation. This protocol is not yet live. Analysts following the proposal have characterized it as an effort to unlock a potential $100 billion lending and collateral market on the XRPL. However, until consensus is reached, this remains an infrastructure concept under development rather than active banking activity on the ledger.
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