As global payment systems are under pressure to become faster, cheaper and less dependent on traditional intermediaries, attention is returning to blockchain-based alternatives. As countries explore alternatives to traditional systems, digital assets are increasingly discussed and XRP is attracting attention. Recent reports of early testing in Russia have sparked new discussions about whether XRP could play a bigger role in the future of international payments.
Connections between Ripple’s technology and Russia have been revealed through a mix of central bank experiments and academic research. SMQKE, a market commentator on revealed that the Bank of Russia conducted a test on the Ripple platform in 2018 at its innovation laboratory in Novosibirsk, evaluating the potential for cross-border settlements. This outcome suggests that it could serve as a basis for such a system pending the resolution of organizational, legal, and technical barriers.
What Russia’s Early Tests Could Mean for XRP Adoption
In addition to investigations at central banks, Ripple and XRP have also been brought to the attention of institutional circles. A report from JPMorgan Chase, reportedly shared exclusively with Mihail Turlakov of Russia’s Sterbank, singled out Ripple for its speed, low costs and liquidity benefits. This positions it as an attractive digital asset for financial institutions at scale and a potential disruptor in global cross-border payments.
Related reading: How XRP Ledger is positioning itself at the center of institutional capital flows
Academic interest further strengthens this story. A 2020 paper from Southern Federal University presented at the FETDE 2020 conference explored blockchain adoption in Russia, with specific attention paid to XRP’s role as a bridge currency for payments. Meanwhile, the newspaper also referred to the spam protection tool on the Ripple network.
Reporting from CoinDesk points to a deeper strategic shift at Ripple, focused on vertical integration within the financial stack. BankXRP named a series of acquisitions in 2025 involving Hidden Road for prime brokerage with $3 trillion in annual clearing, GTreasury for treasury management with $13 trillion in payments volume, and Rail for stablecoin payments infrastructure.
These moves create end-to-end control over custody, liquidity and… settlement. This will allow Ripple to integrate its RLUSD stablecoin, which is designed to enable near-instant cross-border payments with fewer intermediaries than traditional correspondent banking systems.
Furthermore, this approach positions Ripple as an institutional provider of financial stacks rather than just a payments or stablecoin company, as described in the CoinDesk Data report commissioned by Ripple.
There will be a new institutional execution tool for XRP
Coin base will introduce a Trade at Settlement (TAS) feature for XRP futures on May 1, 2026, marking a major step forward for regulated institutional execution.
BankXRP has that too named that this new TAS mechanism allows institutional participants to execute block trades at the official settlement price, rather than being exposed to unpredictable intraday volatility.