What Ripple's XRPL Funding Overhaul Means for XRP Price

What Ripple’s XRPL Funding Overhaul Means for XRP Price

In Brief

• Ripple shifting XRPL funding to a more decentralized model.
• New programs aim to expand real-world ecosystem growth.
• XRP impact depends on adoption and execution.

Ripple has outlined a major shift in how the XRP Ledger ecosystem will be funded starting in 2026. In a new update, the company said more than $550 million has already been deployed into XRPL initiatives, but future support will lean more heavily on distributed and community-driven funding. The move signals a transition away from Ripple-led programs toward a broader builder economy.

Ripple Shifts XRPL Funding Structure

In a blog post published on February 26, the company said ecosystem growth has reached a point where funding can no longer rely on a single pipeline. Ripple-backed initiatives like grants and accelerators will continue, but the team is introducing new pathways to spread decision-making across independent organizations, regional hubs, venture partners, and community-led programs.

One of the biggest additions is a new ‘FinTech Builder Program’ aimed at startups building institutional-grade financial applications on XRPL. The program will focus on real-world products such as tokenization, credit rails, stablecoin infrastructure, and regulated financial services, with support spanning product design, partnerships, and market launch.

As the company explained:

“The objective is to help founders move beyond early experimentation and build real financial products that reach production. This will see the FinTech Builder Program include a series of important initiatives.”

Ripple is also backing expanded accelerator partnerships, regional startup competitions to identify projects earlier and help them scale faster, as well as builder awards to “support projects post-hackathon/start-up competition at an important stage of growth.”

Community Governance And Global Expansion

A central pillar of the new model is XAO DAO, a hybrid governance structure designed to let the community allocate funding through proposals and voting. The idea is to introduce faster microgrants and reduce reliance on top-down decision-making.

Independent initiatives are also gaining prominence. XRPL Commons will continue supporting builders through grants and incubators, whereas new regional hubs like XRP Asia should focus on localized ecosystem growth.

At the academic level, Ripple is expanding its university accelerator programs to institutions including Oxford and FGV, signaling a push into early-stage founder pipelines.

The broader takeaway is that Ripple wants XRPL funding to feel less centralized as the network matures. By encouraging multiple funding sources, venture partners, and community governance layers, the ecosystem is positioning itself for a more distributed growth phase.

If the shift succeeds, XRPL could move closer to a self-sustaining builder economy in which funding decisions would spread across a wider set of stakeholders. That transition would mark one of the most meaningful structural changes in the network’s evolution, especially as competition among smart contract ecosystems continues to intensify.

Bullish Effect on XRP

Meanwhile, this could also provide a powerful trigger for the price of XRP, the token supporting and interlinking the entire Ripple-XRPL ecosystem, which is currently trading at the price of $1.42, down 1.3% on the day and up 0.3% across the week, amid losing 25.8% over the past month.

*XRP price 7-day chart. Source:* *CoinGecko*

According to prominent cryptocurrency trading expert EGRAG Crypto, XRP’s ‘Nike’ structure is targeting areas of $11-$13, $23-$27, and $100, respectively, against the foreground of a bullish long-term outlook and not mere hopium.

*XRP price movement analysis and prediction. Source: EGRAG Crypto/X*

All things considered, the good news coming from the Ripple team could provide the necessary and long-awaited push for the price of XRP to start moving toward the areas projected by the crypto industry analyst and hit new all-time highs.