By Joren Lundgren, founder and CEO, XORA
When we started XORA, one fact shaped everything: XRP has a huge, unusually loyal retail base. Unlike Bitcoin, whose supply has flowed into institutions and exchange-traded funds, XRP stayed in the hands of everyday holders, who own the majority of circulating tokens. Millions of people held this asset, and almost none of them could do anything with it beyond watching the price. That struck me as a product waiting to be built.
We launched XORA in February 2026 with a clear goal: give XRP everyday utility. In practice that meant two things working together, the ability to earn on idle XRP and the ability to spend it in the real world. Both had to run on rails fast and cheap enough to make them feel ordinary, which is why we built directly on the XRP Ledger rather than on top of it.
What building on the XRPL gave us
- Settlement in seconds. Withdrawals finalize on the XRP Ledger in about three seconds, so instant access is the default, not a premium tier.
- Costs that round to zero. Network fees on the XRPL are fractions of a cent, which makes everyday movement and a spending card economically viable.
- Verifiable custody. We run a segregated treasury with per-user destination-tag routing, auditable on-chain through any XRPL explorer, reconciled daily and backed by a depositor-reserve buffer funded from revenue.
Earning and spending, not trading
The two features we lead with are deliberately mundane. Idle XRP earns a daily yield in the background, currently 15% paid in XRP plus an estimated 7% in our native XORA tokens for tier-one balances, and the XORA card, now rolling out, lets a holder spend that XRP at the point of sale, with conversion handled automatically. None of it asks the user to understand wallets or sign transactions. They use a passkey, see a balance, earn, and spend. Good fintech hides its machinery, and the destination-tag routing and treasury management stay our problem, not theirs.
We are also clear about what we are not. XORA is custodial and not a chartered bank, and balances are not government insured. We publish our treasury address, reconcile daily, and disclose that the native XRP yield is currently a time-limited subsidy from our treasury that steps down as deposits grow and transitions to on-chain yield from XRP Ledger AMM liquidity provision and lending. In fintech the temptation is always to over-promise, especially on yield. We keep the rate in the background and put utility in front, because the durable version of this product is the one a holder actually uses every week.
There is a bigger thesis under all of this. For a decade, crypto’s consumer story has been buying and holding, with utility always promised for later. XRP is the clearest test of whether that can change, precisely because its holders are real people rather than funds. If you can give millions of retail owners a reason to use what they hold, not just store it, you start to build something that looks less like a speculative venue and more like a bank.
XRP spent a decade proving it could move value between institutions. The more interesting question is whether it can become useful to the millions of people who actually hold it. That is the bet behind XORA, and it starts with letting them earn on their XRP and spend it like money. You can read how our custody and yield work on our security page, or start at xora.finance.
Disclaimer: Crypto investments carry risk. Yields are variable, and the native XRP yield is currently a disclosed, time-limited treasury subsidy. XORA is custodial and not a chartered bank, so balances are not FDIC or government insured. Card features are subject to availability.
