October’s 2nd Week In Crypto: Ripple, Gate And Orbi Announce New Partnerships
This week’s offers are about cash shifting with out the ready: RLUSD settling funding exterior banking hours, a Bulgarian financial institution folding crypto into its app, playing cards turning stablecoins into on a regular basis spending in Mexico, and wallets constructed for AI brokers. Less spectacle, extra infrastructure closing the hole between crypto and finance.
Ripple Partners With DriveWealth for RLUSD Settlement and Cross-Border Payments
Ripple and DriveWealth introduced on October 14 a package deal overlaying settlement, funds and custody for DriveWealth’s investing infrastructure, with Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin on the XRP Ledger serving because the settlement asset.
Clients funding collateral accounts may swap stablecoin deposits into money in close to actual time as a substitute of ready on a world wire, and DriveWealth additionally plans to soak up cross-border funds from its companions via Ripple Payments.
European operations go first, with the US following. DriveWealth provides brokerage plumbing to greater than 100 companions, together with fintechs, wallets and monetary establishments that wish to supply US market entry.
The firms’ argument is a timing mismatch: US equities settle a enterprise day after buying and selling, however cross-border greenback transfers can take longer, which ties up capital.
CEO Naureen Hassan mentioned DriveWealth already affords 24/5 buying and selling and desires funding to maintain tempo, so clients’ cash isn’t “sitting idle in a single day or over a weekend.”
Later phases would add treasury and custody options, letting purchasers see greenback, stablecoin and crypto balances in actual time.
It’s been a busy few days for RLUSD usually. On October 12, Standard Chartered started providing RLUSD custody via its Dubai department, and it’s working with Ripple and LMAX Group on letting purchasers publish RLUSD as buying and selling collateral whereas it stays in custody, pending testing, authorized paperwork and approvals.
Fibank Becomes Bulgaria’s First Bank to Offer Crypto Through Bitpanda
Fibank has signed a partnership with Bitpanda that lets clients of its My Fibank cell app entry crypto companies from contained in the banking app, a primary for a Bulgarian financial institution. Bitpanda, the Austria-based and absolutely licensed crypto supplier, runs the companies behind the scenes, and clients who apply and get accepted can use them across the clock, with a minimal funding of simply €1.
The financial institution is upfront in regards to the catch. These belongings aren’t deposits or conventional monetary devices, so no ensures or compensation schemes apply, and Fibank is urging clients to learn up on the dangers earlier than leaping in. Access additionally will depend on Bitpanda approving every applicant underneath its personal phrases.
Fibank CEO Nikola Bakalov referred to as the tie-up a pure subsequent step in turning My Fibank right into a broader digital platform, and mentioned it mattered that the providing comes alongside “a longtime European know-how accomplice” working inside regulatory necessities.
Nadeem Ladki, who heads Bitpanda Enterprise, mentioned digital belongings are shifting into mainstream finance with banks on the heart, and that the Bulgarian rollout brings crypto to greater than one million clients via “a banking expertise they already know and belief.”
Crypto choices from banks stay skinny throughout Bulgaria and the encircling area, which is why Fibank is casting itself as a part of the vanguard of EU lenders providing this instantly via their very own digital channels.
Gate Teams Up With Visa on a Crypto-Linked Card Across 40+ Markets
Crypto playing cards preserve multiplying, and Visa has numbers to show it: greater than 160 stablecoin-linked card programmes are dwell globally, with fee quantity up practically 200% 12 months over 12 months. Gate is the latest to hitch in, with a crypto-linked Visa card anticipated to roll out in over 40 nations and territories.
Spend at a retailer or on-line, and the crypto in your Gate account will get transformed to fiat on the level of sale, with making use of and managing dealt with within the Gate app. Supported markets and eligibility are on the product web page.
Visa contributes acceptance at greater than 175 million service provider places throughout over 200 nations and territories.
Gate brings greater than 61 million customers, over 5,300 crypto belongings and a rising menu of inventory and traditional-finance merchandise, plus a brand new app referred to as Gate Money that places crypto, fiat, shares, gold and financial institution accounts underneath one roof.
Gate’s founder and CEO, Dr. Han, mentioned digital belongings are “steadily changing into a part of on a regular basis monetary life” and that the cardboard ought to make paying with them really feel extra pure.
Visa’s Nischint Sanghavi, who leads digital currencies for Asia-Pacific, mentioned customers need fee strategies which can be “versatile, handy, and extensively accepted,” and that Visa desires to attach new types of worth to present funds infrastructure.
SoFi Tech Solutions, Orbi and Mastercard Launch a Crypto-Linked Card in Mexico
SoFi Tech Solutions, the enterprise previously generally known as Galileo, has partnered with Mexican fintech Orbi and Mastercard on a crypto-linked card program for Orbi clients in Mexico. People will pay from both a daily fiat steadiness or their crypto holdings, with conversion occurring for the time being of buy, so retailers nonetheless get fiat.
Physical and digital playing cards are each deliberate, and SoFi’s hyperlink to Mastercard’s Mexican home community, MxDS, helps purchases and ATM withdrawals.
SoFi Tech Solutions handles the heavy lifting behind the scenes: BIN sponsorship, issuing, transaction authorization, processing and compliance, with SoFi’s SoFiUSD stablecoin additionally a part of the combo. The backdrop is a shift in how individuals throughout Latin America use crypto.
At Bitso, stablecoins made up 40% of crypto purchases in 2025, versus 18% for bitcoin, the primary time stablecoins overtook it within the change’s regional knowledge.
Kathleen Pierce-Gilmore, who leads SoFi Tech Solutions, famous that Mexico is among the many world’s largest remittance markets and that the cardboard offers individuals “a trusted option to obtain, maintain and spend digital {dollars}.”
Orbi co-founder Leonardo Perez mentioned the connection with SoFi and Mastercard has deepened because the early days, and Mastercard’s Silvana Hernández framed the purpose as making digital belongings as simple and trusted to make use of as conventional funds.
Privy Brings Its Wallets to the XRP Ledger Through a Ripple Partnership
Privy, the pockets supplier Stripe agreed to accumulate final 12 months, is extending its pockets instruments to the XRP Ledger via a partnership with Ripple, introduced October 13. Developers constructing with Privy will have the ability to generate and handle XRPL wallets programmatically, signal transactions, and work with XRP, Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin and different tokens on the community.
There’s additionally an exit route promised, with key and seed phrase export for anybody who desires to depart Privy.
The pitch covers two audiences. Payments firms can use embedded wallets to supply stablecoin transfers with out clients ever dealing with keys, whereas AI brokers can use server-side wallets to carry funds and pay for issues, together with via x402, an open normal the place a server solutions with an HTTP 402 code and the shopper pays earlier than retrying.
Policy controls and gasoline sponsorship are subsequent on the roadmap.
Ripple’s Markus Infanger, who leads RippleX, mentioned Privy brings “confirmed pockets infrastructure” that helps fintechs and builders put the XRPL into actual merchandise, together with agentic commerce. Privy CEO Henri Stern mentioned stablecoins are altering how cash strikes and that the XRPL has been “constructing for funds from the beginning.”
Privy credit the ledger with $1 trillion in worth moved and over 8 million funded accounts.
Stripe has been folding Privy wallets into its personal stablecoin push, together with assist for Open USD, whereas Ripple retains working to convey RLUSD into mainstream fee flows.
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