Ripple Adds Fourth Korean Partner as XRP Sits Near $1.33

Ripple announced a fourth Korean institutional partnership on Wednesday, signing Meritz Securities, one of Korea's leading securities firms. The two companies will explore how to bring Ripple Custody and Ripple's tokenisation infrastructure into Korea's capital markets.

XRP did not move with the news. The token traded at $1.33 on CoinGecko's XRP page on Oct. 14, inside a 24-hour range of $1.33 to $1.38, and down 6.9% over seven days.

That gap is the story. A signed partnership is Ripple's business pipeline, not demand for the token.

Meritz Deal Names Custody and Tokenisation, Not a Network

Meritz is Ripple's fourth Korean institutional partnership this year and its first with a securities firm, per the release. The scope covers custody and tokenisation, with Meritz's own interests spanning spot ETFs, fractional investment and security tokens, trading platforms and KRW-denominated stablecoins.

Both sides said they will start within the scope of Meritz's existing securities business and current regulation, then widen cooperation in stages as Korea's digital asset framework develops.

Byungha Kang, Managing Director of the Strategic Planning Unit at Meritz Securities, said the deal "lays the foundation for combining Ripple's global digital asset infrastructure with our capital markets capabilities." Fiona Murray, Ripple's Managing Director for Asia Pacific, said Ripple brings the full infrastructure stack across payments, custody and tokenization, backed by more than 85 licenses and a network spanning more than 60 markets.

What the release does not contain matters just as much. It names no blockchain network for the proposed tokenisation work, makes no commitment to using XRP, RLUSD or the XRP Ledger for future securities transactions, and carries no commercial launch date or financial terms.

The three earlier Korean partners cover three different products, not three copies of an XRP deal. Kyobo Life Insurance is using Ripple Custody for Korea's first tokenized government bond settlement on blockchain. Kbank is deploying digital asset wallet infrastructure through Ripple Custody. Jeonbuk Bank became the first Korean regional bank to adopt Ripple Payments for cross-border remittance. That is a pattern of custody and payments contracts, which is a different claim from XRP demand.

The DriveWealth Deal Does Touch the XRP Ledger

The same day brought a second partnership, this one with DriveWealth, a brokerage-as-a-service platform that powers investing experiences for more than 100 partners globally. Its stated scope is stablecoins, payments, liquidity, custody and prime brokerage.

The concrete part is settlement. DriveWealth is integrating Ripple's stablecoin infrastructure to support settlement in Europe, with plans to expand to the U.S., using RLUSD on the XRP Ledger alongside Ripple mint and burn capabilities. It is also integrating Ripple Payments to support cross-border acceptance from its global partners, and working with Ripple on digital asset custody needs in Europe, with plans to expand to additional markets.

Further out, DriveWealth and Ripple Prime are exploring equity financing through Ripple Prime's Delta One business, covering U.S. equities and equity derivatives.

DriveWealth CEO Naureen Hassan framed the demand side of the deal:

"We've already enabled 24/5 trading; now we need the funding to match, so clients can move with the markets instead of waiting for them."

The two companies will discuss the partnership in a fireside chat at Ripple Swell on Wednesday, October 28, in New York City.

Derivatives Still Dominate XRP Turnover

CoinGecko's snapshot puts the spot picture in context. Market cap was $83.783 billion, 24-hour trading volume $1.842 billion, and volume was 14.40% lower than the day before. Perpetual futures open interest, the value of outstanding derivatives contracts, stood at $4.162 billion, with a perps-to-spot 24-hour volume ratio of 10.4 times.

Network usage on the same page is small next to the market: $5,562.64 in fees and $443.02 in project revenue over 24 hours.

Longer windows are less ugly than the week. XRP is down 11.4% over 14 days and 5.1% over 30 days, but up 45.8% over a year, and it sits 63.6% below its $3.65 all-time high.

Levels as they stand: $1.38 is the top of the 24-hour range, $1.33 the bottom. Nothing in the reporting around these announcements ties the decline to the Meritz deal, and CoinGecko's XRP page attributed the day's pressure to CPI data instead.

The next scheduled checkpoint is the Ripple Swell fireside chat on Oct. 28. Until then, the Meritz work stays inside the securities firm's existing permissions and Korea's current rules, which is where the release left it.