Crypto Journalist

Amin Ayan

Crypto Journalist

Amin Ayan

About Author

Amin Ayan is a crypto journalist with over four years of experience in the industry. He has contributed to leading publications such as Cryptonews, Investing.com, 99Bitcoins, and 24/7 Wall St. He has…

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Last updated: 

July 6, 2025

Mercado Bitcoin, one of Latin America’s largest crypto exchanges, announced plans to tokenize $200 million worth of real-world assets (RWAs) on the XRP Ledger.

The move will bring tokenized fixed-income and equity instruments onto XRPL, as the exchange looks to tap into the growing market for digital versions of traditional assets, according to a statement released by Ripple on Friday.

“Mercado Bitcoin’s integration with the XRPL shows how public blockchain infrastructure is being trusted by institutions and is becoming a reliable foundation for bringing regulated financial products to the market,” said Silvio Pegado, Managing Director, LATAM at Ripple.

Push for Tokenization Rules Gains Steam in US Market

Ripple’s announcement follows a Boston Consulting Group report forecasting the tokenized RWA sector to reach a market capitalization of $19 trillion by 2033, underscoring surging interest from both crypto-native and traditional financial players.

The deal highlights momentum across the industry as asset managers and blockchain firms ramp up efforts to secure regulatory frameworks for tokenized assets, especially in the United States.

Earlier this week, Ondo Finance, a decentralized finance protocol, acquired Oasis Pro, a regulated trading platform specializing in digital securities settlements, to deepen its footprint in the RWA market.

Meanwhile, Centrifuge, another blockchain firm focused on real-world assets, unveiled plans to tokenize the S&P 500 index, offering decentralized access to a basket of America’s top publicly listed companies.

The rush into tokenized RWAs has also attracted attention from the biggest names in finance.

In January, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink publicly called on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to approve tokenization of stocks and bonds, arguing it could improve market efficiency.

Last week, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins told CNBC that the “rules have not been clear” when it comes to regulating digital assets in the United States and hinted at the “imminent” boom in tokenization as a whole.

Atkins claimed that tokenization is “the next step” in order to have “much more efficiency” across markets.

Ripple Drops Cross-Appeal Against SEC to Resolve Case

Last month, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse revealed the company will withdraw its cross-appeal against the SEC, adding that the regulator is also expected to drop its own appeal.

The announcement followed a U.S. district court decision rejecting a joint request from Ripple and the SEC to reduce Ripple’s $125 million civil penalty and overturn the ruling that classified Ripple’s institutional XRP sales as securities transactions.

In her ruling, Judge Analisa Torres noted Ripple’s readiness to “push the boundaries” of the earlier summary judgment, suggesting a risk of future violations.

Ripple’s chief legal officer, Stuart Alderoty, said the firm faced a choice between dropping the appeal or continuing to contest the finding.

He emphasized that regardless of the decision, “XRP’s legal status as not a security remains unchanged,” and assured that Ripple’s business operations would continue as usual.

XRP Ledger posted the second-largest 30-day increase in tokenized real-world assets (RWA), adding 34.6% to reach $157.4 million, data from rwa.xyz shows. 

Only Aptos outpaced that monthly growth, expanding nearly 57% to $539.3 million, while Ethereum maintained the lead by total value at $7.55 billion, with a 2.4% gain.

Notably, the XRP Ledger is the 10th-largest blockchain by total tokenized RWA value, but it displays the third-smallest number of projects, with six initiatives.

However, this number is set to rise following a recent partnership between Ripple and Brazilian crypto platform Mercado Bitcoin, which aims to tokenize $200 million using the XRP Ledger.

Aptos and XRP Ledger headed the leaderboard by percentage growth. Algorand advanced 21.8% to reach $294.7 million, and Solana added 18.5% to hit $415.0 million. 

Stellar was the only top-ten network to shrink, slipping 5.7% to $467.7 million. Ethereum and ZKsync Era, which account for more than three-quarters of the tracked value, recorded low single-digit moves. XRP Ledger’s share of the indexed market now stands at 1.2%.

Inside XRP Ledger’s tokenization stack

US Treasury debt comprises the largest slice of tokenized value on XRP Ledger at $90.1 million, or roughly 57% of the network’s RWA base. Public equity receipts follow at $55.4 million, with non-US sovereign debt and real-estate tokens contributing $11.9 million and $2.9 million, respectively.

Archax anchors the ledger’s protocol table with $112.1 million across three instruments, equal to 55.6% of on-chain value, while Ondo holds $30.1 million.

Furthermore, token volumes on XRP Ledger are set to widen. The Brazilian exchange Mercado Bitcoin announced on July 4 that it plans to tokenize more than $200 million in permissioned fixed-income and equity-income products on the blockchain. 

According to Ripple, the effort ranks among the most extensive Latin American tokenization campaigns. It builds on Mercado Bitcoin’s record of issuing more than R$1 billion ($182 million) in on-chain private credit assets with zero defaults. 

The exchange will utilize XRP Ledger’s native settlement layer to distribute the instruments across South America and Europe.

Ripple noted that Mercado Bitcoin already uses Ripple Payments for cross-border treasury transfers between Brazil and Portugal and listed the RLUSD stablecoin on its venue earlier this year. 

If completed in full, the new issuance would more than double the ledger’s current RWA capitalization and move the network higher in RWA.xyz’s rankings.

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