Ripple Custody just unlocked Ethereum and Solana staking, and institutions may finally get XRP yield without messy validator risk

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.

And XRP is presented as the connective asset for bridging, collateral flows and fees.

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