XRP Ledger’s September 2025: The Breakthroughs, The Breakdowns, The Brutal Truth
XRP Ledger hits unprecedented transaction volumes while regulatory shadows loom large.
The Good: Lightning-Fast Settlement Times
Processing speeds shattered previous records—cross-border payments now clear in under three seconds, leaving traditional banking systems in the dust.
The Bad: Regulatory Whack-a-Mole Continues
Just when developers thought compliance hurdles were cleared, new global frameworks emerged—because nothing says innovation like filling out paperwork for every transaction.
The Ugly: Validator Centralization Fears Resurface
Despite years of decentralization promises, power concentrated among fewer nodes than ever—proving some things in crypto never really change.
The ledger either revolutionizes finance or becomes another case study in blockchain growing pains. Either way, traditional banks are watching—and probably charging maintenance fees while they wait.
New Features and Compliance Developments
The monthly highlights were shared by Dan Fisher, Community Relations Manager at XRPL, via X. One of the month’s developments was Joey Wallet’s simplified onboarding guide, which streamlined access to XRPL for new users through integrations with MoonPay, First Ledger, and XRPCafe. XRPScan also introduced an amendment voting timeline to improve transparency in validator operations, such as the Token Escrow proposal, which provides details on voting.
September also saw Xaman Wallet release version 4.2.1, removing the requirement for trustlines in token transfers. This update enables token sending via Checks without extra steps. Later in the month, it also added MoonPay Sell, completing fiat-to-XRP flows within the app and enabling buy and sell transactions in one platform.
On the compliance front, the Credentials amendment went live, introducing decentralized identity features to the ledger. Ripple engineer Kenny Lei provided an educational breakdown on how this feature enables on-chain identity verification by allowing for regulated interactions between users and institutions. Chainalysis also expanded its support to all XRPL tokens, including IOUs and NFTs.
In DeFi and gaming, XRPL Commons partnered with B3 and Peersyst to launch Gamechain, a gaming ecosystem on the XRPL EVM sidechain now live on testnet. The XRPL Commons Aquarium Residency also launched its seventh cohort focused on DeFi innovation, welcoming builders from 11 countries to develop new use cases on the ledger.
Donations and Community Initiatives
Elsewhere, Ripple made headlines with a $25 million RLUSD donation to small businesses and veterans via the XRP Ledger. RippleX continues to push institutional adoption with an updated institutional DeFi Roadmap that includes lending protocols and private transactions.
The community has also been active in September, with Krippenreiter releasing detailed threads explaining the ecosystem’s lending mechanics and the Permissioned DEX. There was also an ongoing community discussion about renaming the XRPL Core software from rippled to xrpld to align with the ledger’s naming style.
Additional product milestones included Anodos’s new in-app bridge that supports transfers between XRPL and other networks, and First Ledger’s creator rewards program for token projects that lowers the minimum trading volume threshold for Tier 1 eligibility from 100,000 XRP to 50,000 XRP. XRPL Commons also announced GLOW, a retroactive funding initiative to support developer contributions.
The month concluded with XRP Seoul 2025, which brought together over 3,000 participants from more than 40 countries to discuss developments and opportunities within the XRP and XRPL ecosystem.
