Ripple Expands Investment Push With ZILO and Licuido — What It Means for XRP Price

Key Takeaways

• Ripple invested in ZILO and Licuido.
• The firm’s latest release of 1 billion XRP had almost no immediate impact on XRP’s price.
• XRP ETF inflows and regulatory progress may prove more important for the token’s price than Ripple’s corporate expansion.

Ripple has deepened its move into institutional investing with strategic investments in ZILO and Licuido, two companies building infrastructure for tokenized funds and other traditional financial assets.

The deals are intended to make it easier for asset managers to issue, administer, and use tokenized investments as collateral through the XRP Ledger (XRPL).

However, the announcement has also revived a familiar question for XRP investors: will Ripple’s growing financial infrastructure create meaningful demand for the crypto, or can institutions use its products without holding significant amounts of XRP?

The distinction matters after XRP remained close to $1.06 despite a myriad of high-profile moves from Ripple.

Ripple Invests in ZILO and Licuido

Ripple announced its investments in ZILO and Licuido on Aug. 3.

ZILO provides transfer agency and fund administration technology. Transfer agents maintain the official ownership records for investment funds and ensure investors receive the correct number of shares.

Its technology will allow asset managers and custodians to manage tokenized share classes while retaining the regulated ownership records required by traditional financial institutions.

ZILO founder and CEO Phil Goffin said fund managers needed technology capable of handling tokenized shares “without adding operational risk.”

Meanwhile, Licuido operates a tokenization and trading platform that covers the issuance, distribution, and exchange of digital representations of traditional assets.

Its involvement is intended to give tokenized fund shares greater utility after issuance. Rather than sitting passively in an investor’s account, the assets could potentially be traded, lent, or posted as collateral.

Licuido CEO Brian Lynch said Ripple’s support would help institutions turn inactive assets into “liquidity they can actually use.”

Together, the companies fill two important gaps in Ripple’s capital markets strategy.

ZILO provides regulated record-keeping, while Licuido provides the infrastructure for issuing and moving the assets.

Nigel Khakoo, Ripple’s senior vice president of trading and markets, said:

“Tokenization of assets is only the starting point.”

Practical XRPL Uses Growing?

The investments follow Ripple’s collaboration with Aviva Investors to bring traditional fund structures onto XRPL.

Ripple has also cited its work with Franklin Templeton and DBS as evidence that established financial institutions are progressing from experiments to practical uses for tokenized assets.

Posting on X, Ripple President Monica Long said the transition had accelerated over the past year.

“In the last year, we’ve seen the veritable light switch flip – from bank pilots to production, from issuing tokenized assets like money market funds and liquidity funds to using them! Institutional capital markets are moving in one direction — onchain 24/7.

The investments in ZILO and Licuido help Ripple fill out that infrastructure.

ZILO provides the regulated ownership and fund administration layer, while Licuido provides technology for issuing, distributing, trading, and using assets as collateral.

Ripple Releases 1 Billion XRP From Escrow

The investment announcement came shortly after Ripple completed its scheduled monthly release of 1 billion XRP on Aug. 1.

The tokens were released in three transactions containing 500 million, 300 million,n and 200 million XRP.

However, 700 million XRP was also placed into new escrow contracts through two transactions of 200 million and 500 million tokens.

This meant only approximately 300 million additional XRP remained outside escrow.

Ripple created its escrow system in 2017, when it placed 55 billion XRP into 55 contracts, each containing 1 billion tokens.

One contract was designed to expire monthly, giving the market greater visibility into when Ripple’s reserves could become available.

XRP that is not required can be returned to the end of the escrow schedule.

Why Ripple’s Moves Have Not Lifted XRP

The August escrow activity had almost no immediate effect on XRP’s daily closing price.

XRP closed at approximately $1.062 on July 31 and $1.061 on Aug. 1, representing a change of less than 0.1%.

It rose to around $1.085 the following day, then surrendered those gains. The token was trading close to $1.06 on Tuesday, according to CoinMarketCap.

Ripple’s new investments have not produced an immediate price rally either, highlighting the separation between Ripple, XRPL, and XRP.

Ripple is a private technology company, XRPL is a public blockchain, and XRP is the network’s native crypto.

Growth in one does not automatically create equal financial gains for the others.

XRP is needed to pay XRPL transaction fees and fund account reserves. The current minimum account reserve is 1 XRP, while the standard base transaction cost is only 0.00001 XRP.

Such low requirements mean network activity can increase substantially without institutions buying large XRP positions.

The deals are consequently positive for XRPL adoption but only indirectly positive for XRP.

What Could Move XRP and Its ETFs Next?

ETF demand remains one of the clearest sources of direct XRP buying.

US spot XRP ETFs recorded approximately $14.86 million in net inflows during the July 27–31 trading week, according to SoSoValue data.

Cumulative inflows reached approximately $1.51 billion, despite the funds holding less than $1 billion in assets, as XRP’s falling price reduced the value of their existing holdings.

The divergence is significant.

Regulated funds continue to attract capital, but those inflows have not been large enough to offset selling elsewhere in the market.

For ETFs to become a stronger price catalyst, inflows would need to remain positive over several months and broaden across issuers.

Regulation remains another major variable.

The CLARITY Act would establish a clearer division of responsibility between the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

While its immediate prospects remain uncertain, it could nevertheless give exchanges and fund managers greater confidence about how digital assets will be regulated.

Prediction market traders placed the probability that the legislation would become law in August at approximately 27% on Aug. 4.