Ripple Drops $200K Bomb on Japan to Ignite XRPL Frenzy—Because Banks Clearly Need Help Spending Money

Ripple's latest play? A six-figure grant aimed at jumpstarting Japan's XRP Ledger ecosystem. Because nothing says 'adoption' like throwing cash at developers while traditional finance still struggles with fax machines.

The $200,000 injection targets projects that'll actually get users transacting on-chain—because let's face it, most enterprise blockchain 'solutions' still move slower than a Tokyo subway at rush hour.

Will this finally crack Japan's crypto conundrum? Or just add another line item to Ripple's 'expensive experiments in convincing banks to stop being banks' ledger? Place your bets.

Ripple seeks to increase XRPL usage by expanding its presence in Asia

Meanwhile, the MOVE by Ripple appears to be part of the company’s efforts to expand the usage of XRPL and boost Ripple’s presence in the region. XRPL already has some presence in the region, with two awardees for Wave 7 of XRPL Grants, Moai Finance and VWBL, coming from Korea and Japan.

The company has also secured multiple regulatory approvals from the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) for its digital payments service and RLUSD stablecoin, while it has partnerships with SBI Holdings and HashKey.

However, Ripple’s global presence has not translated into significant usage for the XRPL. The blockchain network has been around for over a decade but continues to see significantly fewer transactions than several smart contract networks.

A report of its transaction data from May shows that it had around 51 million transactions throughout the month, less than Solana’s daily count. Beyond XRPL’s low transaction volume, DeFi activity is significantly lower on the network, with less than 10% of active addresses involved in DeFi transactions during the month.

Unsurprisingly, Ripple is trying to improve those metrics and boost the XRPL ecosystem by attracting on-chain products from Asia to boost its user base. Last year, it launched the XRPL Japan and Korea Fund, and the recent initiative is part of the fund. The firm committed in 2022 to spend 1 billion XRP on supporting XRPL-based projects.

XRP sees a slight tick in value despite no gains in 2025

Meanwhile, efforts to boost XRPL usage could also benefit XRP, given that it is the native token for the network. As Ripple CTO David Schwartz said, the token has a privileged role in the XRPL ecosystem and is effective as a bridge asset.

So far this year, XRP has failed to replicate its late 2024 rally. This is likely because 2025 has been a tough year for altcoins, with the Altcoin index scoring at 29/100. However, the token remains one of the best-performing major cap altcoins year-to-date, with a significantly smaller percentage drop than ETH, SOL, and ADA.

XRP even increased slightly today and has gained almost 6% in value over the past seven days to trade at $2.269.  Still, it is down 2.29% YTD, and uncertainty remains due to the unresolved lawsuit between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple.

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