XRP News Today: Mercado Bitcoin to Tokenize $200 Million Assets on XRP Ledger

Mercado Bitcoin, a prominent crypto exchange in Latin America, has announced its plans to tokenize $200 million worth of real-world assets (RWAs) on the XRP Ledger. This initiative aims to bring tokenized fixed-income and equity instruments onto the XRP Ledger, tapping into the growing market for digital versions of traditional assets. The move is part of a broader trend in the industry, where both crypto-native and traditional financial players are increasingly interested in tokenized assets.

Silvio Pegado, Managing Director for Latin America at Ripple, highlighted the significance of this integration. He stated that Mercado Bitcoin’s move demonstrates how public blockchain infrastructure is gaining trust from institutions and becoming a reliable foundation for regulated financial products. This development comes amid forecasts of a $19 trillion tokenized asset market by 2033, as reported by the Boston Consulting Group, underscoring the surging interest in this sector.

The push for tokenization rules in the United States is gaining momentum. Major players in the industry are ramping up efforts to secure regulatory frameworks for tokenized assets. 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. Additionally, 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 major financial institutions. 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 hinted at the “imminent” boom in tokenization, claiming that it is “the next step” in order to have “much more efficiency” across markets.

Ripple’s recent decision to withdraw its cross-appeal against the SEC is another significant development. The company revealed that it will drop its cross-appeal, and the regulator is also expected to withdraw its own appeal. This 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. Ripple’s chief legal officer, Stuart Alderoty, 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.