Wrapped XRP launches on Solana, unlocking Cross-Chain DeFi for XRP holders

Hex Trust and LayerZero have officially launched wrapped XRP (wXRP) on Solana. This move marks XRP's evolution from a payment-focused asset into a multi-chain DeFi participant, backed by institutional custody and positioned to tap into Solana's impressive transaction throughput and liquidity infrastructure.

This deployment connects XRP's proven reliability and market liquidity with Solana's high-performance architecture, which consistently processes over 30 million daily transactions with sub-second finality. It enjoyed more than $100 million in initial liquidity across leading Solana protocols.

What is Wrapped XRP and why Solana?

Wrapped XRP (wXRP) is a custody-backed version of native XRP that operates on Solana (and other supported blockchains), with each token maintaining a 1:1 backing with XRP held in regulated custody by Hex Trust, a digital asset custodian. This structure ensures that every wXRP in circulation corresponds to real XRP reserves, with full redemption rights available 24/7 through authorized merchants who handle the compliance side.

The technical implementation relies on two critical infrastructure components. LayerZero provides the cross-chain messaging layer through its Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) standard, which processed over 85 million cross-chain messages throughout 2025. This protocol avoids many risks associated with traditional bridge designs, which is a crucial consideration given that bridges historically account for over 50% of major cross-chain exploits. 

Hex Trust handles the custody and issuance process. When users deposit XRP, Hex Trust mints an equivalent amount of wXRP, and upon redemption, the wXRP gets burned and the native XRP returns to the holder. This mint-and-burn mechanism maintains supply integrity across chains while ensuring regulatory compliance.

The choice of Solana as the initial deployment chain appears to make sense. Solana's total value locked stands at circa $5.7 billion with 24-hour DEX volumes exceeding $3.9 billion, in stark contrast to XRP Ledger's $6.78 million in DEX volume. In other words, there’s a massive liquidity advantage gained by wXRP by bridging into Solana's ecosystem.

Solana's infrastructure offers several specific advantages that align with XRP's expansion goals:

1. Throughput and speed – Solana frequently exceeds 50,000 transactions per second with minimal transaction fees, enabling high-frequency trading and real time liquidity operations that would be too expensive on many other networks. This performance attracted over 2,500 monthly active developers and spawned more than 500 DeFi protocols by late 2025. 

2. Liquidity depth – Solana's DEX ecosystem processed over $40 billion in monthly volume during Q4 2025, while the network's lending markets held approximately $1.4 billion in borrowed value. These established liquidity pools allow wXRP to integrate into functioning markets from day one rather than requiring lengthy bootstrapping periods. 

3. Ecosystem vitality – Solana hosts over 15 million active wallets, and the network's total value locked expanded 320% year-over-year through late 2025.

At the Solana Breakpoint 2025 conference in Abu Dhabi, Ripple executives emphasized that this integration forms part of a broader strategy focused on distribution and utility expansion. Luke Judges, Head of Partner Success at RippleX, made clear that Ripple wants XRP used everywhere, instead of being confined to trading pairs on centralized exchanges. 

He outlined three specific drivers behind selecting Solana: new users, new demand and market depth.

DeFi applications, launch performance, and cross-chain strategy

The practical applications of wXRP span multiple DeFi categories, each unlocking different forms of utility:

• Trading and liquidity provision – Users can trade wXRP across Solana's decentralized exchanges, which processed billions in daily volume throughout late 2025. Liquidity providers can deposit wXRP into automated market maker pools, earning fee revenue from trading activity; Solana liquidity providers collectively earned over $500 million in fees during 2025.

• Lending and borrowing – DeFi lending protocols on Solana enable users to supply wXRP as collateral for borrowing other assets, or to lend wXRP to earn interest. 

• Advanced yield strategies – More advanced users can deploy wXRP in yield vaults, automated rebalancing strategies, leveraged positions and cross-market arbitrage. These applications benefit from Solana's low latency and transaction costs, making complex multi-step strategies economically viable.

• Institutional settlement – Beyond retail DeFi, wXRP provides institutions with a compliant path to on-chain XRP exposure. 

During launch, more than 20 protocols integrated wXRP support within its first week, facilitated by the simultaneous 60% increase in Solana's stablecoin liquidity during the launch window. This rapid adoption reflects both the technical preparation preceding the launch and the market demand for cross-chain XRP access. 

David Schwartz, Chief Technology Officer at Ripple, noted that having XRP function across more ecosystems will increase its utility, with XRPL holding it all together. And favorably, the launch timing coincided with Solana adding $1.3 billion in new total value locked during December 2025.

While Solana serves as the initial deployment, the LayerZero OFT standard positions wXRP for broader multi-chain presence. Hex Trust specifically mentioned plans to expand to Ethereum, Optimism, HyperEVM and additional blockchains, with support for Cosmos-based networks also under consideration. 

This expansion strategy taps into substantial liquidity across different ecosystems; by late 2025, DeFi markets across Ethereum, Avalanche, BNB Chain and other major networks held over $90 billion in combined total value locked or staked. And cross-chain transaction volume increased 260% between 2023 and 2025, signaling sustained demand for assets that can move seamlessly across blockchain boundaries.

The omnichain approach addresses the fundamental challenge of liquidity fragmentation across crypto generally. When assets remain confined to single chains, they cannot efficiently access capital, users or applications on other networks. By enabling XRP to exist simultaneously across multiple high-value ecosystems, wXRP aims to remove these barriers and create unified liquidity across chains. 

The wXRP launch fits within Ripple's larger 2025-2026 strategy, based on cross-chain liquidity, regulated on/off-ramps, and omnichain settlement. This approach complements other ecosystem developments, particularly Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin, which surpassed $1.2 billion in circulating supply by late 2025. 

Rather than competing with XRPL, wXRP extends XRP's reach into markets where XRPL's architecture faces limitations. 

While XRPL excels at cross-border payments and enterprise use cases, it has historically attracted fewer DeFi-native projects compared to ecosystems like Solana or Ethereum. The wXRP bridge addresses this gap, allowing XRP holders to access DeFi opportunities without requiring fundamental changes to XRPL itself.

Risks and trajectory

As always, there are no potential rewards without risk. Wrapped assets introduce counterparty dependencies; in this case, reliance on Hex Trust's custody operations and LayerZero's cross-chain messaging. 

Although both providers maintain strong security practices and regulatory compliance, smart contract vulnerabilities, custody failures or bridge exploits do remain possible. DeFi protocols themselves carry risks as well, including lending markets facing liquidation cascades during volatile periods, liquidity pools experiencing losses and complex yield strategies which may fail to perform as expected. 

Regulatory considerations also apply. While Hex Trust's licensed custody structure aims to provide compliant asset handling, the regulatory landscape for wrapped assets and cross-chain DeFi continues to evolve. 

Users, particularly institutional participants, will need to ensure that their wXRP usage aligns with applicable regulations in their jurisdictions. Technical risks exist with any novel integration, and despite thorough testing, unexpected interactions between wXRP, Solana protocols and LayerZero infrastructure could surface during operation. 

More widely, the wXRP launch reflects broader industry trends toward blockchain interoperability and multi-chain asset strategies. 

Cross-chain infrastructure has arguably matured, with LayerZero's 85 million processed messages in 2025 representing just one data point in a larger pattern of growing cross-chain activity. This infrastructure enables not only wrapped assets but also unified liquidity layers, cross-chain lending and omnichain applications that function across multiple networks simultaneously.

The convergence of established digital assets with high-performance blockchains may represent a key theme for 2026's crypto markets. Projects are increasingly recognize that no single blockchain will dominate all use cases, leading to strategies that embrace multi-chain presence rather than chain maximalism. 

For XRP holders considering wXRP usage, several practical considerations apply. For example, accessing wXRP requires interacting with authorized merchants who handle the minting process and conduct KYC/AML compliance checks. This structure differs from fully permissionless crypto interactions but provides the regulatory certainty sought by institutional participants. 

Moving between native XRP and wXRP also involves transaction costs, and while redemption rights exist 24/7, the actual process requires coordination with authorized merchants. Once holding wXRP, users face decisions about deployment strategies, because simply holding wXRP in a wallet provides Solana ecosystem exposure but generates no additional returns, while deploying into lending protocols, liquidity pools or yield strategies can generate returns but introduces protocol risks.

Competitive dynamics also matter; wXRP is not the only potential wrapped XRP implementation, and how it differentiates itself and maintains market share will influence its long-term success.

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