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The new "Earn on XRP" feature will affect a colossal pool of 1.62 billion tokens held on one of the largest trading platforms. Uphold Chief Product Officer Paul Underwood has officially confirmed that the long-awaited passive income tool is in the final stages of development.
The announcement was made at the XRP Vegas conference and later repeated on X. Underwood acknowledged that development had taken longer than planned but assured users: "The wait is almost over, with details coming in the next few weeks."
The intrigue surrounding this release is purely technical. By design, the XRP Ledger (XRPL) does not support native staking in the same way as networks such as Ethereum or Solana.
To give users the opportunity to earn interest, Uphold has to implement workarounds—for example, by using DeFi lending protocols such as Exactly Protocol or wrapped tokens through its partner, Flare Network.
In addition to the technical side, the exchange is also addressing legal issues. In his responses to users, Underwood confirmed that the company is currently working to obtain New York's strict BitLicense. This is a clear signal that the new Earn tool is being prepared under the strict oversight of U.S. regulators.
Why does the exchange need it? (Spoiler: to retain its XRP Army)
For the platform, launching this product is a strategic move backed by enormous figures. According to its official Proof of Reserves report, the exchange currently holds around 1.62 billion XRP.
This is a colossal amount:
- It represents 1.63% of all XRP in circulation worldwide.
- It places Uphold among the world's top three exchanges by XRP holdings, behind only South Korea's Upbit and global exchange Binance.
- XRP is the largest asset on the platform by market capitalization, with user holdings backed at a 1:1 ratio.
Uphold has long positioned itself as the main haven for the XRP community. The exchange already offers debit cards in the U.S. with up to 6% cashback in XRP, as well as bonuses of up to 3% for recurring purchases.
The launch of a full-fledged Earn program will address the main need of long-term investors—the ability to safely monetize their holdings within a regulated platform without moving them to complex and risky third-party DeFi platforms. The company has promised to disclose the official terms and interest rates in the coming weeks.
Dan Burgin
U.Today Editorial Team
