Privy, the wallet-infrastructure company owned by Stripe, now lets developers create XRP Ledger wallets inside their own apps, under a partnership with Ripple announced on Tuesday. Apps can create the wallets, sign transactions and handle XRP, Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin and other tokens issued on the network.
An embedded wallet is a so-called wallet-as-a-service, one that lives inside an app rather than in a separate download. The user signs in to the app, and the wallet comes with the account.
Ripple said on X that the integration lets developers build XRP, RLUSD and other XRPL payments “directly into their products, without requiring users to manage their own keys.” It also said the wallets can be run by AI agents that hold funds and pay, including through x402, a web payment standard for software agents.
Privy’s developer documentation sets out how it works. Apps create wallets with an “xrpl” chain type, sign any XRP Ledger transaction through Privy and submit it with the standard xrpl.js library.
Users can export the raw private key or a standard BIP-39 recovery phrase to move the wallet elsewhere, the docs say. Privy’s policy engine lets an app cap amounts, limit destinations and restrict transaction types for each wallet.
“Stablecoins are changing how money moves, and XRPL has been building for payments from the start,” said Henri Stern, Privy’s co-founder and chief executive and Stripe’s head of crypto and stablecoins, as reported by The Block. Markus Infanger, a senior vice president at Ripple’s developer arm RippleX, said the wallets would help bring the ledger “into real products.”
Why it matters: the XRP Ledger has spent this year adding tools aimed at regulated payment apps, from delegated permissions to issuer controls, as tracked in our Chain Check. Wallet plumbing from a Stripe company removes one of the costlier parts for a fintech that wants to offer RLUSD.
Convenience shifts who holds the keys
Embedded wallets trade friction for trust. Whether the user, the app or Privy can move funds depends on how each app configures key control, so readers should check an app’s terms before treating its wallet as self-custody. Our explainer on what a private key is covers why that matters.
There is also a ledger-specific catch. An XRP Ledger account does not exist until it receives the base reserve, currently 1 XRP, the docs note, so apps must fund every new wallet before it can send anything.
Privy plans to add gas sponsorship later, letting apps pay network fees for users, The Block reported. The ledger’s reference transaction cost is 10 drops, or 0.00001 XRP, according to XRPL.org, so the reserve, not the fee, is the bigger cost for apps creating wallets at scale.
The deal does not change XRP’s supply or the ledger’s rules, and neither company gave a launch customer or user target.
XRP was little changed at $1.37 as of 19:54 UTC, according to CoinGecko. The next network date to watch is 23 Oct, the earliest the PaymentBurn fix could switch on, as set out in our report on delegated permissions.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.