Ripple and Settlemint Launch Combined XRP (XRP) Custody and Tokenization Platform in Asia

Ripple and Settlemint Combine Custody and Tokenization

Ripple, the payments company behind the XRP settlement asset, announced on Sept. 1 a strategic partnership with blockchain platform firm SettleMint to bundle digital asset custody and tokenization tooling for regulated financial institutions. The deal connects Ripple Custody — the company's institutional vault infrastructure — with SettleMint's Digital Asset Lifecycle Platform, or DALP, a system through which licensed banks and enterprises can issue, govern, settle and service tokenized assets inside a single regulated stack. In practice, that means a bank could tokenize a fund share class, run compliance checks on investors, safekeep the underlying records and manage redemptions without leaving the combined environment. Per the joint announcement, the paired systems are already live with institutions in Asia, and both firms plan to extend coverage to additional markets as institutional demand matures.

The commercial pitch is consolidation. Financial institutions today typically assemble issuance, compliance, settlement, custody and ongoing asset servicing from separate vendors, and the companies argue that running these functions on one platform removes the multi-vendor reconciliation gaps that appear when a token moves across disconnected systems. Fiona Murray, Ripple's managing director for Asia-Pacific, said institutions in the region are already putting digital assets to work and do not want to stitch together standalone custody, issuance and governance solutions. Under the division of labor she described, Ripple Custody handles asset safekeeping and governance while SettleMint manages each token's entire lifecycle. For treasurers accustomed to treating a crypto wallet as a self-contained storage product, the integration reframes institutional custody as a control layer sitting beneath issuance and servicing rather than beside them. The announcement did not disclose financial terms of the partnership or any named launch clients.

Inside the Integrated Stack

Ripple has spent the past two years assembling the custody half of this architecture. The company extended Ripple Custody through arrangements with Securosys for hardware-backed key management, Figment for institutional staking and Chainalysis for transaction screening, and it acquired custody and wallet provider Palisade to support scalable deployment and management of wallet addresses across institutional clients. SettleMint's DALP covers the other half: designing, issuing and administering tokens across their full life cycle, including the legal structuring, distribution and redemption steps that tokenized real-world assets require. SettleMint's official announcement states that regulated institutions gain access controls and compliance management across the combined system, with custody and lifecycle functions operating as one foundation rather than two siloed products. Adam Popat, SettleMint's chief executive, framed the deal in market-structure terms, arguing that global capital markets are moving fully on-chain and that the shift only works when digital asset custody and lifecycle management operate as a single system. The market context is sizeable: Boston Consulting Group projects tokenized real-world assets could reach $88 trillion by 2035 — roughly 16% of global investable assets under its progressive scenario — while its rapid-expansion case warns banks in markets that fail to adopt could see profits fall by around 30%. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bitget.

$88 Trillion Race Sharpens for XRP Infrastructure

For XRP holders, the partnership widens the token's institutional surface area beyond trading venues. Ripple already operates a tokenized liquidity fund share class with Aviva Investors on the XRP Ledger, funds operations through its 1 billion XRP monthly escrow release, and watches US-side vehicles gain scale — Bitwise's XRP ETF crossed $500 million in assets earlier this year, and C1 Fund recently made Ripple Labs its top holding at 17.49%. SettleMint's own release confirms the scope — combined custody and lifecycle management, live in Asia — but discloses no contract value, revenue split or client roster, so the commercial traction behind the $88 trillion thesis remains unverified for now. Our reading at COINOTAG: custody consolidation is the pipeline through which bank tokenization budgets will actually flow, and Ripple has positioned itself early. For readers weighing exposure, our guide to buying XRP covers the main venues.