Wall Street’s settlement backbone adds crypto infrastructure to tokenization pilot
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation has named Ripple Prime as a partner in its tokenization working group, positioning the blockchain firm alongside 50+ other institutions including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan.
The DTCC clears $114 trillion in transactions annually and serves as the backbone of U.S. securities settlement. The addition of Ripple Prime signals institutional appetite for blockchain-based post-trade infrastructure at the highest level of Wall Street operations.
Ripple Prime, available across all U.S. states, enables clients to use XRP and RLUSD for trading, collateral, and post-trade settlement. The service operates alongside traditional rails rather than replacing them. “Banks are not choosing between SWIFT and Ripple but are running both lanes simultaneously,” according to X Finance Bull, a crypto pundit tracking institutional adoption.
The DTCC plans to roll out a pilot of production trades of tokenized real-world assets in July 2026, with a full tokenization service launch scheduled for October 2026. The exact scope of Ripple Prime’s role within that framework has not been detailed publicly.
Bank of America, listed as a RippleNet member and Ripple Governance Committee participant, holds XRP exposure through the Volatility Shares XRP ETF. RippleNet provides blockchain-based settlement and on-demand liquidity through XRP, complementing SWIFT’s global messaging reach across more than 11,000 institutions.
The XRP Ledger has crossed $4 billion in total real-world asset (RWA) value, with RWA holdings, stablecoin market cap, stablecoin holders, and stablecoin transaction volume all rising over the last 30 days. XRP traded at $1.15 at the time of writing, up in the last 24 hours, with the 1D chart showing $1.17.
“Ripple is now inside Wall Street’s core infrastructure,” Bank XRP, a crypto pundit, said in response to the partnership announcement. ChartNerd, a crypto analyst, added that “Ripple Prime is bullish for XRP,” citing the institutional validation embedded in the DTCC partnership.
The working group’s scale, spanning 50+ firms across investment banking, asset management, and custody, suggests broad consensus on tokenization as a near-term priority for settlement modernization. The July pilot and October launch dates establish concrete timelines for testing production workflows at institutional scale.
What Comes Next
Ripple’s integration into DTCC infrastructure does not displace existing settlement protocols. Instead, it expands the toolkit available to institutions managing collateral, liquidity, and post-trade operations. The pilot phase will reveal which asset classes and settlement workflows benefit most from blockchain-based clearing.
