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Ripple Custody just unlocked Ethereum and Solana staking, and institutions may finally get XRP yield without messy validator risk
While XRP lacks staking rewards, Ripple strengthens its institutional appeal by integrating proven yield assets.
Ripple Custody just unlocked Ethereum and Solana staking, and institutions may finally get XRP yield without messy validator risk

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Ripple Custody just unlocked Ethereum and Solana staking, and institutions may finally get XRP yield without messy validator risk
While XRP lacks staking rewards, Ripple strengthens its institutional appeal by integrating proven yield assets.
Oluwapelumi Adejumo•Feb. 10, 2026•4 min read
Ripple has enabled staking for Ethereum and Solana within its institutional custody business, expanding beyond safekeeping to include asset servicing features that large investors increasingly consider standard.
The new capability, delivered through a partnership with staking infrastructure provider Figment, enables Ripple Custody clients to offer staking on major proof-of-stake networks without setting up validator infrastructure.
This service provides operational simplicity with institutional controls, a combination aimed at banks, custodians, and regulated asset managers that want staking yield but do not want staking operations to sit outside their governance perimeter.
The move also highlights a structural difference between XRP and the proof-of-stake assets institutions commonly hold alongside it. Ethereum and Solana can generate protocol rewards. XRP cannot, at least not today.
For custody clients that benchmark crypto servicing against familiar concepts such as securities lending revenue or cash yields, that gap matters.
Figment’s role in making staking institutional-grade
Ripple’s choice of Figment indicates what institutions prioritize when requesting staking: separation of duties, operational assurance, and an auditable framework.
Figment says Ripple selected it for its track record of serving more than 1,000 institutional clients, its non-custodial architecture, and its focus on regulated participants.
This architecture matters in practice because many institutional buyers prefer custody and validator operations to remain distinct functions. They want clear lines around who controls assets, who runs infrastructure, and how risks are monitored.
Staking also carries a type of operational risk that traditional custody clients recognize immediately. Validator performance requirements introduce failure modes, and slashing-related outcomes can be difficult to explain if governance and control standards are unclear.
For regulated firms, the question is often less “can we earn rewards” and more “can we earn rewards in a way that survives compliance review and audit scrutiny.”
Figment has also emphasized trust signals built for institutional due diligence, including full certification under the Node Operator Risk Standard (NORS), which audits node operators across security, resilience, and governance.
Those categories closely align with the due diligence checklists that typically shape procurement decisions in regulated finance.
Ripple’s integration aims to turn staking into a custody feature that behaves like a workflow, not an infrastructure project.
That positioning aligns with how the custody market has evolved. Institutions are increasingly trying to reduce multi-vendor sprawl. They want services bundled under a controlled operating model, with reporting and accountability.
XRP does not offer protocol staking, and the XRPL staking debate is not deployment-stage
The addition of Ethereum and Solana staking also highlights what XRP does not provide: protocol-level staking rewards.
That omission becomes tangible at the custody layer. A platform that offers only XRP can store assets, support transfers, and provide reporting, but it cannot offer a recurring on-chain yield program through XRP’s native mechanics.
In an environment where staking yield is treated as a baseline expectation for proof-of-stake assets, that can leave a custody menu feeling incomplete.
Meanwhile, Ripple’s ecosystem is exploring what XRP Ledger (XRPL) staking could look like, but those discussions point to economic constraints, not cosmetic ones.
RippleX developers have described two requirements for any native staking design on XRPL: a sustainable rewards source and a fair distribution mechanism.
Notably, XRPL’s long-standing approach is to burn transaction fees rather than redistribute them. Validator trust is earned through performance rather than financial stake.
That means staking would require an economic redesign, not a simple upgrade that switches rewards on.
There is also a process signal in the XRPL development pipeline. The ledger’s known amendments tracker currently shows no staking-related amendment in development or voting.
That does not rule out future work. It does, however, reinforce that staking is not in an active deployment phase on XRPL.
For institutional custody clients, that distinction is practical. Ethereum and Solana yield exists today, is measurable today, and can be operationalized today. On the other hand, XRP-native staking remains a discussion with unresolved economics.
XRP inflows are strong anyway, even as institutions rotate risk
The custody product expansion is underway, as XRP-linked investment products are seeing stronger weekly inflows than Ethereum- and Solana-linked products, according to recent weekly data.
CoinShares reported that XRP-led investment products attracted $63.1 million last week. During the same period, Solana’s products took in $8.2 million, and Ethereum’s drew $5.3 million.

However, Bitcoin-focused products saw a strong pocket of negative sentiment, with $264m in outflows for the week.

These numbers show aggressive reallocations, with investors trading and reshaping exposures as prices move, rather than a straightforward accumulation wave.

The flow data underlines a point that custody buyers often encounter quickly.

A token can attract institutional allocations through investment products, while still lacking a servicing feature that committees increasingly expect from proof-of-stake assets.

Essentially, XRP demand and XRP product completeness are distinct questions.

In light of this, Ripple’s response is to separate roles inside its institutional stack. XRP remains positioned as the connective asset in the firm’s preferred rails, while Ethereum and Solana provide yield inside the custody perimeter.

Ripple keeps XRP central through an institutional DeFi roadmap
Ripple has been explicit that adding staking on other networks is not intended to diminish XRP’s importance in its strategy.

Instead, the company’s recent “Institutional DeFi” roadmap positions the XRPL as a high-performance chain for tokenized finance, with compliance tooling and programmability designed for regulated use cases.

Ripple describes XRP’s role spanning reserve requirements, transaction fees (which burn XRP), and auto-bridging in foreign exchange and lending flows.

The roadmap also highlights on-chain privacy, permissioned markets, and institutional lending as features slated to go live in the coming months.

That framing positions XRP as infrastructure, not an income asset.

It also supports a multi-asset custody approach, allowing institutions to earn yield on Ethereum and Solana within a controlled custody workflow and then use XRPL rails.

In that model, yield is a feature that helps bring institutions into the custody perimeter. XRPL is positioned as the environment where Ripple wants more on-chain activity to occur, subject to compliance-forward constraints.

A
nd XRP is presented as the connective asset for bridging, collateral flows and fees.
$XRP $ETH $SOL #Xrp🔥🔥 #ETH #solana

Jefferies releases a report on gold accumulation among nations and non-sovereign entities.
64-year-old Wall Street firm flags unusual gold accumulation
Jefferies releases a report on gold accumulation among nations and non-sovereign entities.
Mehab Qureshi and Anand SinhaFeb 9, 2026 2:15 PM EST
Founded in 1962, the New York-based investment bank Jefferies advised governments, corporations, and institutional investors through inflation cycles, commodity booms, and financial crises.

That history is what makes its latest observation stand out.

In a recent report, Jefferies analysts noted an unexpected surge in physical gold buying by a non-sovereign entity, at a pace that now rivals national central banks.
According to the analysts, roughly 32 tonnes of physical gold were accumulated in late 2025 and January 2026 alone, placing the buyer among the most aggressive purchasers of bullion globally during that period. Only Brazil and Poland, both sovereign nations, were estimated to have bought more over the same timeframe.
In total, Jefferies estimates the entity now controls at least 148 tonnes of gold, valued at approximately $23 billion, enough to rank within the top 30 gold holders worldwide, surpassing several mid-sized countries.

Why the buying matters now
Gold has been in a historic rally, recently crossing $5,500 per ounce and rising nearly 50% since September, driven by central bank demand, rising long-term bond yields, and growing efforts to reduce reliance on the U.S. dollar.
Jefferies analysts framed the accumulation as part of a broader shift in how large pools of capital are positioning for long-term monetary uncertainty.

At this scale, gold purchases are no longer about short-term hedging. They signal balance-sheet strategy.
$PAXG $XAU $BTC #gold

Ripple and XRPL developers say recent mainnet upgrades and upcoming features position the XRP Ledger as a hub for regulated, real-world finance.
What to know:
Ripple and XRPL contributors are positioning the XRP Ledger as an institutional DeFi platform by combining compliance-focused infrastructure with XRP’s role as a settlement and bridge asset.
New and upcoming features, including permissioned domains, credential-based access, privacy-preserving transfers, and the XLS-65/66 lending protocol, are designed to meet regulatory and risk-management requirements for on-chain credit and payments.
An EVM sidechain bridged via Axelar aims to attract Solidity developers by offering familiar tooling while tapping XRPL’s liquidity, identity features, and XRP’s utility in collateral, reserves and fee-driven burn mechanics.
Ripple and XRPL contributors have outlined a growing set of “institutional DeFi” building blocks on the XRP Ledger that aim to make the network viable for regulated financial activity, per a Thursday blog.

XRP’s utility as a settlement and bridge asset is being highlighted as central to that infrastructure, with usecases ranging from from forex and stablecoin rails to tokenized collateral and native lending markets.
The latest roadmap emphasizes features already live — such as multi-purpose token standards (MPT), permissioned domains with compliance tooling, credential-backed access and batch transactions — alongside upcoming releases that extend XRPL into credit markets and privacy-preserving workflows.

Unlike many smart contract chains that bolt on compliance after the fact, XRPL’s approach has been to embed identity and control primitives at the protocol layer.
Permissioned domains and credentials allow markets to gate participation by verified entities, a requirement institutions often cite as a barrier to onchain integration.

On the payments and FX side, XRP’s role as an auto-bridge between assets continues to be cited as a demand driver, with stablecoin corridors and remittance flows adding to onchain volume and fee activity. Token escrows and object reserves denominated in XRP further tie network usage back to the native asset.

Looking ahead, the introduction of XLS-65/66 — the XRPL lending protocol — is slated to offer pooled and underwritten credit on ledger without entirely offloading risk logic onchain.

Single asset vaults, fixed-term lending and optional permissioning tools are designed to feel familiar to institutional risk managers while operating in an onchain settlement context.

Privacy features like confidential transfers for MPTs, arriving in the first quarter, aim to satisfy enterprise and regulatory expectations around transaction-level anonymity and controlled disclosure.

Critics have long pointed to XRPL’s lack of EVM-style programmability as a hindrance. The new EVM sidechain — bridged via the Axelar network — is meant to address this by letting Solidity developers tap into XRPL liquidity and identity features while accessing familiar tooling.

XRP prices are down 22% over the past seven days, in line with a broader market drop.$XRP #Xrp🔥🔥