What is the LendingProtocolV1_1 amendment?

It's a proposed upgrade to the XRP Ledger that adds native lending functionality, including collateralized loans, interest accrual, and liquidations, as base-layer transactions rather than through a smart contract layer.

How does XRPL amendment voting work?

XRPL amendments need at least 80% of trusted validators on the Unique Node List signaling support continuously over a two-week window. If support drops below that threshold at any point, the clock resets.

When could the amendment activate?

The earliest possible activation is two weeks from Tuesday, assuming validator support crosses 80% immediately and holds there without interruption.

Does this affect XRP price directly?

Not on day one. Amendment votes are structural signals that price in slowly, mostly through basis and funding on perps rather than spot. The relevant window is the next fortnight, not the next 24 hours.

RippleX Opens Validator Vote on XRPL Lending Protocol Upgrade

Market impact

XRP was not showing a meaningful reaction to the news in the hours after publication. Amendment votes rarely move spot on day one because activation is at minimum two weeks out and validator behavior is the actual signal, not the filing. The more interesting read is basis and funding on XRP perps over the next fortnight.

A clean pass would likely tighten basis as market makers price in higher on-chain utility. A stall or reset of the vote clock would be a negative surprise, given how confidently RippleX has telegraphed the timeline.

Bull case: amendment clears inside 14 days, XRP re-rates on the DeFi utility narrative, invalidation on a validator UNL drop below 75% support.

Base case: vote extends past a single window, XRP holds a range, invalidation on a formal RippleX withdrawal of the amendment.

Bear case: vote fails outright and RippleX has to revise, invalidation on a fresh proposal shipping inside 30 days.

RippleX Opens Validator Vote on XRPL Lending Protocol Upgrade

RippleX submitted the LendingProtocolV1_1 amendment to XRP Ledger validators for a formal vote on Tuesday, per a U.Today report citing the network's amendment registry. The proposal, if it clears the 80% validator threshold sustained over two weeks, would activate native lending primitives directly on the XRPL base layer. It's the most consequential protocol change put to the network since the AMM amendment cleared in 2024.

By Clara Hoffmann· AI-assisted· L2 & scaling

What happened

RippleX, the developer arm of Ripple that maintains the reference XRP Ledger client, opened validator voting on the LendingProtocolV1_1 amendment on Tuesday, according to U. Today's reporting on the amendment registry. The amendment introduces native lending functionality at the ledger layer, meaning loan origination, collateralization, interest accrual, and liquidation logic would execute as base-layer transactions rather than through a smart contract virtual machine.

XRPL uses a two-week rolling amendment vote: any change needs at least 80% of trusted validators signaling support continuously over a 14-day window before it activates on mainnet. The vote clock started Tuesday. If validator support holds, the amendment activates automatically.

If it drops below the threshold at any point, the window resets.

Why it matters

XRPL has spent most of its lifecycle positioned as a payments and settlement ledger. Lending is a different business. DeFi lending on Ethereum and its L2s currently anchors around $45B in total value locked across Aave, Morpho, Compound, and Spark, per DefiLlama.

XRPL entering that market natively, without the smart contract overhead or gas mechanics that shape every EVM lending protocol, is a structural pitch to a category the chain hasn't competed in before. The other read: this is RippleX narrowing the gap with the AMM amendment shipped in 2024, which brought native automated market making to the ledger. Lending completes the second half of the DeFi primitive set.

Ripple's product roadmap has been explicit about turning XRPL into a full DeFi settlement layer for institutions, and this is the amendment that lets that pitch stand up.

Market impact

RippleX Opens Validator Vote on XRPL Lending Protocol Upgrade

What happened

Why it matters

Market impact

What to watch

Disclaimer

Key takeaways

Frequently asked

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