A claim has emerged that XRP Ledger (XRPL) is evolving beyond a network that merely hosts tokenised real-world assets (RWA) into infrastructure used for actual financial activity.

On July 14 local time, blockchain outlet The Crypto Basic reported that Evernode CEO Ashish Birla (아시시 비를라) said the next stage of tokenisation is not just putting traditional assets on a blockchain, but enabling them to continue to be managed in tokenised form.

Birla, citing RWA.xyz data, said the scale of RWA on XRP Ledger this year rose 388 percent from $900 million to $4.4 billion. He stressed that the core of tokenisation is not simply storing assets but using them. Capital moves to where there is less transaction friction, he said, adding that platforms offering ample liquidity and competitive pricing attract more users.

He said tokenised assets should not be left idle in digital wallets. With higher liquidity, better return opportunities should be offered in line with investors' risk appetite, and portfolio rebalancing in response to changing market conditions should become easier and more automated, along with links to lending and collateral services. Birla said, "Tokenisation is only the base," adding, "A network should be able to bring assets into broader financial activity."

From that perspective, Evernode assessed that XRP Ledger already has some of the necessary foundations. XRP Ledger has its own decentralised exchange (DEX), and transaction settlement is also carried out quickly. Some financial institutions also view XRP Ledger as a structure suited for cross-border payments. HSBC has previously described it as a 'game changer.'

On-chain lending and a collateral vault function are also under development. Evernode said that once these functions are completed, the environment for actually managing tokenised assets will be strengthened beyond simply holding them.

Birla then said multiple networks will come to support tokenised assets together, adding, "This is not a zero-sum game." He added that networks offering deep liquidity, efficient settlement, reliable governance and broad asset support will draw more adoption over time.

Ripple's stablecoin RLUSD was presented as an early example showing this trend. Birla said RLUSD supply in June rose to about $1.6 billion, with more than 50 percent of its liquidity on XRP Ledger. That was a sharp rise compared with 17 percent in April. RLUSD supply has now fallen to $1.48 billion, but 59 percent of it remains on XRP Ledger.

Birla said stablecoins play a central role in digital finance, as they supply liquidity needed for payments, lending, settlement and other financial services. He said the concentration of RLUSD liquidity on XRP Ledger shows users are choosing infrastructure that allows them to move funds faster and more efficiently.

The remarks come after Birla urged crypto treasury companies a few days ago to consider ways to generate returns from their holdings beyond simply building portfolios. At the time, he presented XRP Ledger-based tokenisation as an alternative. As a result, competition around XRP Ledger appears to be shifting from the volume of asset issuance itself to where issued assets are actually traded, used as collateral and draw liquidity.

Real-world assets on XRP went from about $900M to over $4B this year, according to https://t.co/eUa0rom1ti. Tokenizing an asset is the easy part. But what’s the point if you aren’t going to do anything with them? This content is for informational purposes only and does not…