The XRP Ledger has activated its Permissioned DEX, XLS-81, creating gated on-chain trading venues for KYC/AML-compliant institutions. Open DEX remains intact.
The XRP Ledger just flipped the switch. A new upgrade called the Permissioned DEX, officially tagged XLS-81, went live, changing how regulated institutions interact with on-chain markets.
The feature doesn’t replace anything. It sits alongside the existing open order book. What it does is let designated administrators decide who gets in, building a members-only trading environment directly on the ledger.
Banks Just Got Their Own Onchain Trading Room
Access gets restricted to participants who pass KYC and AML checks. Think banks, brokers, and regulated firms that want blockchain settlement but can’t touch fully open markets without compliance headaches.
According to Naga Avan-Nomayo on X, XRPL’s Permissioned DEX creates “gated on-chain trading venues where only approved participants can place and take orders.” He called it plainly “compliance-first DeFi.” The open DEX didn’t go anywhere. Two systems, one network, running side by side.
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Trading mechanics stay native to the ledger. Orders go in, trades execute, just within a gated pool. According to XRPL’s amendment documentation, the update creates “controlled environments for trading within the XRP Ledger’s decentralized exchange.” Same rails. Restricted entry.
RippleXDev pushed back on how the upgrade was being framed. As RippleXDev noted on X, “the XRP DEX remains open.” The Permissioned DEX is optional. Its purpose is adding compliance controls for use cases that need them, while shared on-chain liquidity stays available to all.
What Just Changed and the Bigger Picture
The Permissioned DEX didn’t arrive alone. Just before it, the network activated XLS-85, an escrow upgrade covering trustline tokens and multi-purpose tokens, including stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets.
Put both together. Institutions can now issue compliant tokenized assets, hold them in escrow, and trade them in a gated venue, all without leaving the ledger.
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Ripple has also partnered with Aviva Investors to tokenize funds directly on XRPL. Retail traders won’t feel much from this directly. But the direction is hard to miss. XRPL is building for traditional finance, not trying to out-compete open DeFi on its own terms.
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Compliance-first DeFi, on-chain settlement for regulated firms, tokenized asset infrastructure. The XRP Ledger is playing a different game entirely.
