Ripple Just Got Its Full EU MiCA License. Is This Big for XRP?

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Ripple just received full MiCA authorization from Luxembourg’s financial regulator, which is the final approval after the preliminary green light it got back in June. That makes the company fully compliant under Europe’s crypto rules and clears it to offer regulated crypto payments across all 30 countries in the European Economic Area.

It’s a massive win for Ripple as the company keeps expanding its cross-border payments reach. But the puzzling question every XRP (CRYPTO:XRP) investor is asking is if this would ever impact the token’s value. Let’s get into it.

Ripple Now Has Full MiCA Approval Across Europe

The approval Ripple picked up today is called a CASP license, short for Crypto Asset Service Provider, and it’s the last piece the company needed to be fully compliant under MiCA—the EU’s crypto rulebook. 

Ripple also already held an EU money license, and the two together mean European banks, fintechs, and businesses can move both regular money and crypto through a single Ripple setup across all 30 countries. Ripple’s UK and Europe boss, Cassie Craddock, said the company is now “fully compliant and ready to scale.”

The license has been anything but easy to get. Europe gave crypto firms until July 1 to get licensed under MiCA, and only about 210 of the 1,200-plus companies that used to operate there managed it. The rest are now legally required to stop serving EU customers. 

Tether, the biggest stablecoin in the world, didn’t pursue MiCA compliance at all and watched its USDT get pulled from European exchanges like Binance and Coinbase. So, Ripple walks into this market as one of the few fully cleared players, days after most of the field lost the right to operate. It’s an edge few companies have, and it adds to the 75-plus licenses the company already holds around the world.

How Ripple’s MiCA License Could Affect the XRP Price

Ripple’s announcement barely mentions XRP. The token shows up just once—in the standard company description at the bottom of the release—while everything above it is about Ripple’s regulated payments product. So, the license doesn’t create any new reason to buy the token. When the preliminary version of this approval came through in June, XRP didn’t rally at all—the token actually slipped about 3% that week, alongside the broader market.

However, there is one way this could eventually reach XRP. Ripple Payments, the company’s money-moving service, has already handled more than $100 billion across 60-plus markets. Every payment that runs across the XRP Ledger charges a small fee, that fee is paid in XRP, and a tiny bit of the token gets destroyed for good each time. 

So, if Ripple’s European business grows and that payment volume actually flows through the XRP Ledger, XRP gets used more with every payment. The catch is that those fees are fractions of a cent, and most of Ripple’s payments today settle in RLUSD or regular currencies, not XRP. Moreover, MiCA runs a separate approval process for stablecoins themselves, and today’s license doesn’t touch that—it clears Ripple’s payment services, not its tokens. 

So, RLUSD hasn’t been approved under those stablecoin rules yet—the same ones Tether skipped before its USDT got pulled from European exchanges. Ripple already holds the EU money license it would need to get RLUSD approved, but until that approval comes, its own stablecoin can’t be offered to the public in Europe, and that’s something rival stablecoins like Circle’s USDC can already do.

Overall, this is a slow and gradual build at best, not something that moves the XRP price straight away.

Will Ripple’s MiCA License Push the XRP Price Higher?

The license alone might not move the XRP price. It makes Ripple one of the most regulated payment companies in Europe and hands it a head start over rivals that just lost the right to operate there, which is good for the business. But it doesn’t bring a single new buyer to the XRP token today.

The catalysts that could actually move XRP are elsewhere. The token is testing the top of its year-long falling wedge this week, and the CLARITY Act still waits on a Senate vote expected before the August recess. Those two matter far more for XRP’s next big move. 

Today’s approval instead feeds the one thing worth watching from Ripple, which is if its growing European payment volume ever starts running through the XRP Ledger. That’s the day a Ripple win finally turns into an XRP win. Until then, Ripple keeps stacking licenses, and XRP doesn’t even flinch.

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