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Ahmed Barakat
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In the latest XRP news, Ripple Labs has joined the UK HM Treasury’s Wholesale Digital Markets taskforce, a 54-firm initiative that estimates tokenized wholesale finance could add up to £33 billion to UK annual economic output by 2035. The move places Ripple in the room alongside major institutions – a composition that signals this program is anchored in institutional finance, not crypto-native advocacy.
Ripple’s participation is that of a task force member, not an advisory lead or designated pilot operator. The distinction matters: with more than 50 organizations involved, Ripple holds a seat at the table where tokenization standards for UK wholesale markets will be shaped, but it does not control the program’s direction.
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XRP News: What the Taskforce Is Actually Building
The £33 billion annual economic estimate originates from HM Treasury’s own strategy documents, not from Ripple. The firm cited the figure in its public support statement.
In a post on X, Ripple said that onchain funds, bonds, and repurchase agreements are already being used. The company also said these products can settle faster and cost less than many traditional systems, and it pointed to the UK’s well-developed capital markets and trusted regulatory system as reasons the country could become a leading market for tokenized wholesale finance.
Regulatory Momentum and the US Angle
The taskforce alignment matters for market positioning broadly: if UK and US tokenization standards converge, and cross-border repo and collateral settlement become primary use cases, then existing institutional infrastructure for cross-border payments could become more directly applicable. That is the strategic logic of Ripple’s presence on the taskforce – early influence in a market that could scale meaningfully by mid-decade.
Industry feedback on taskforce priorities and timelines remains open through September 4.
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SEC Lawsuit Context and XRP Price Setup
Separately, Ripple disclosed new details about the pressure it faced following the SEC’s December 2020 lawsuit. CEO Brad Garlinghouse confirmed that company leadership discussed shutting Ripple down within days of the filing, including the option to close the business, distribute its XRP holdings to shareholders based on their ownership, and tell the SEC that the company named in the lawsuit no longer existed.
CTO David Schwartz later confirmed that outside lawyers told company leaders the business could not be saved, and said the advice at the time was for the executives to strike a deal to protect themselves. Garlinghouse later disclosed that Ripple spent about $150 million on legal fees during the four-year court battle.
Schwartz subsequently clarified that some reports misunderstood his comments, stressing that he never meant to suggest Ripple was close to shutting down, a distinction that matters given how the narrative circulated. The disclosures are retrospective at this point, but they frame the legal risk premium that weighed on XRP pricing from 2020 through the case’s resolution.
On the price side, XRP is holding above the $1.04–$1.11 support band. Both the recent rally leg and the subsequent pullback formed three-wave structures, which do not yet constitute a confirmed bullish pattern.
A sustained hold above support opens the path toward $1.19 and then $1.25; a break below the zone would reinforce the broader downtrend. XRP is up 3.89% year-to-date in 2026, extending a streak of positive annual returns: 47.6% in 2023, 31.2% in 2024, and 35% in 2025.
The UK taskforce announcement adds a concrete regulatory-institutional data point to Ripple’s positioning, but it does not alter near-term XRP technicals. The more durable question is whether Ripple’s early presence in a government-backed tokenization program – alongside institutions that collectively manage trillions in assets – translates into protocol-level adoption when the spring 2027 pilot goes live.
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