Ripple is no longer just building around crypto. Its latest moves suggest the company is positioning itself closer to the financial plumbing that powers Wall Street.
Ripple news took a different turn on October 8, 2026, after the Wall Street Journal reported that the company is entering the leveraged ETF financing market, a business traditionally dominated by banks and securities firms.
The shift puts Ripple closer to Wall Street’s core financial machinery, extending a strategy that already spans digital assets, stablecoins, custody and prime brokerage.
The scale of the market makes the move notable. The WSJ said 593 leveraged ETFs in the U.S. manage more than $256 billion in assets.
Ripple entered the business through its $1.25 billion acquisition of Hidden Road, which now operates as Ripple Prime. The platform provides prime brokerage, clearing and financing across multiple markets.
The central change is where Ripple is competing. Leveraged ETFs use swaps and other financing arrangements to amplify exposure to stocks or indexes. These transactions can provide financial institutions with a steady stream of fees. The WSJ reported that Ripple charges the Tradr 2X Long SNDK Daily ETF about 8% a year for swap financing under current market conditions.
The economics help explain why a crypto-native company would move into a market traditionally associated with banks. Ripple Prime already operates across a much broader institutional market. According to Ripple, the business clears more than $3 trillion in transactions annually and serves over 300 institutional customers.
Its coverage spans digital assets, foreign exchange, precious metals, exchange-traded derivatives, OTC swaps, and fixed-income repo.
Paxos added XRP to its Crypto Brokerage on October 7. The company said XRP, which has been in circulation since 2012, is held across more than 8.1 million wallets and has a market capitalization of nearly $95 billion.
Partners using Paxos infrastructure can now offer XRP through the same regulated brokerage platform.
The development gives XRP another institutional distribution channel. It also fits with Ripple's wider effort to build financial infrastructure around digital assets rather than relying solely on the token itself.
Block Insider reported on October 7 that XRPL added about $2.2 billion in tokenized commodity market capitalization during 2026, ahead of Ethereum’s roughly $1.6 billion increase in the same dataset.
Together, XRPL and Ethereum accounted for about 90% of commodity market-cap growth among the networks shown. XRPL also added $2.4 billion in overall real-world asset market capitalization excluding stablecoins.
Ripple's custody operation is expanding at the same time. Its October 5 custody release added Canton Network support, allowing Canton assets to be managed within the same custody platform and policy framework as other digital assets.
Evernorth adds another important piece to the picture. The company disclosed on October 6 that an administrative delay had pushed the expected closing of its combination with Armada Acquisition Corp. II to October 9.
Trading on Nasdaq under the XRPN ticker is expected to begin around October 12, subject to customary closing conditions and listing requirements. Earlier Block Insider reporting said Evernorth expects to hold roughly 473 million XRP at closing, with total commitments tied to the transaction and related private placements exceeding $1 billion.
A post from The Money Ape framed Ripple's ETF-financing expansion as a direct challenge to established banks and brokers and cited the same $256 billion leveraged-ETF market.
Its comparison with XRP's huge 2017-18 rally, however, is commentary rather than evidence of a repeat move.
Analyst Gert van Lagen is projecting an extended XRP price target of nearly $50, citing the token’s monthly chart structure and performance against Bitcoin.
The analyst’s XRP/USD chart reflects a multi-year breakout currently being tested as a support level. The XRP token traded at $1.40, with the broader 1.20-2.10 zone and a rising long-term trendline, forming the key support area.
In addition, van Lagen is seeing potential for the XRP/BTC pair to recover towards 0.00011, which would put the XRP token near the $49.50 if Bitcoin reaches $450,000.
Both charts are suggesting a potential $50 XRP valuation, equivalent to roughly $3 trillion market capitalization.
The situation is conditional, with the XRP token needing to hold its previous resistance zone, as well as the rising trend line to maintain the bullish structure. A prolonged move below that structure would weaken the situation.
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