XRP holders are excited about the new opportunity for yield with mXRP, the first liquid staking token native to the XRP ecosystem. Axelar, a blockchain infrastructure provider, recently announced that the initial vault of 6.5 million tokens for mXRP was quickly filled within two days of launch, prompting them to raise the cap to 10 million tokens. The total value of assets locked in the vault is now nearly $20 million, showcasing the strong demand from investors looking to put their dormant XRP to work in decentralized finance.
mXRP is designed to provide a new use case for XRP, which has largely remained stagnant despite being one of the oldest assets in the crypto space. Built on the XRP Ledger’s Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) sidechain, mXRP allows users to stake their XRP through the Midas tokenization platform. In return, they receive a wrapped representation of their XRP in the form of mXRP, which can earn annual yields of up to 8%.
The staking process involves bridging XRP to the sidechain and depositing it into tokenized vaults, where it is then allocated into yield-generating strategies managed by independent risk curators. Hyperithm is one of the risk curators overseeing the initial strategies, focusing on market-making and liquidity provisioning activities. The returns from these strategies are reflected in the value of mXRP, ensuring that holders see direct returns in the token they hold.
Dennis Dinkelmeyer, co-founder and CEO of Midas, highlighted the initiative as a way to mobilize dormant capital that has been sitting idle for years. He emphasized the transparent mechanism that mXRP provides for users to access on-chain strategies and earn yields on their XRP holdings.
The project aims to expand XRP’s role in decentralized finance and make it more versatile within the DeFi ecosystem. XRP’s DeFi presence is currently overshadowed by other assets like Ethereum, which have significantly higher total value locked in DeFi protocols. Sergey Gorbunov, co-founder of Axelar, pointed out that their cross-chain framework allows XRP to interact with DeFi applications across multiple blockchains, opening up new opportunities for the asset.
In addition to mXRP, other initiatives like Flare Network’s FXRP are also working towards integrating XRP into DeFi applications. FXRP enables XRP holders to participate in lending, liquidity pools, and other DeFi activities without losing exposure to the underlying asset.
Overall, mXRP and similar projects are paving the way for XRP to play a more active role in the decentralized finance space, offering new opportunities for XRP holders to earn yields and participate in the growing DeFi ecosystem.