XRP Holds Firm as Ripple Gains Institutional Custody Via BNY
XRP held firm at $1.25 on Monday as Ripple gained institutional custody via BNY Mellon, raising expectations that the token will meet crypto analysts’ price target. In the last 24 hours, trading volume rose about 65% to $1.3 billion, data from top cryptocurrency exchanges revealed.
Ripple and BNY announced an expanded collaboration in which BNY now supports custody of XRP and Ripple USD (RLUSD) for eligible institutional clients on its Digital Asset Custody platform, under its standard governance and controls.
BNY was already the primary reserve custodian for RLUSD and a custodian for Ripple Prime; this move extends that relationship from backing assets and brokerage to directly safeguarding clients’ XRP and RLUSD holdings.
An official release describes BNY’s plan to also let clients mint and redeem RLUSD directly through the bank, subject to bank and regulatory approvals, and to support more XRP Ledger-based tokenised assets and investment products.
XRP now sits inside a blue chip custody stack that many large institutions already use for traditional securities, which makes it much easier for them to hold it if they choose.
BNY reports over $ 60 trillion in assets under custody and administration, so adding XRP and RLUSD puts them on infrastructure that already serves major asset managers, banks, and corporates.
Multiple analyses note that many institutions require established custodians before they can hold new asset classes; BNY’s support lowers that hurdle for XRP and positions RLUSD as an institutional settlement rail.
The partnership also targets tokenized trade finance, including plans with working capital platform C2FO to test supply chain finance on the XRP Ledger, using RLUSD as settlement currency.
If even a small slice of BNY’s client base adopts XRP rails or RLUSD for payments and collateral, the on-chain activity and narrative around XRP as institutional plumbing could strengthen.
The announcements do not disclose any XRP custody balances, new purchases, or specific rollout geographies, so there is no proof yet of meaningful incremental demand.
Independent analysts note that moving existing XRP into BNY custody changes the custodian, not the number of tokens held, and that availability varies by customer and jurisdiction.
BNY’s addition of XRP and RLUSD custody is a meaningful institutional infrastructure win that makes XRP more accessible to large traditional players.
The deeper opportunity is in using XRP Ledger rails and RLUSD for tokenised trade finance and settlement, but those use cases must move from plans and pilots to measurable flows before they materially change XRP’s fundamentals.
