Mastercard Makes Surprise XRP Ledger Move

Payments Mastercard has joined an upcoming XRPL hackathon in New York as a sponsor.

The New York-headquartered firm will participate in the 36-hour XRP Ledger Hackathon that is scheduled for Oct. 24–25. 

The event will bring developers to New York to build and launch projects on the XRP Ledger ahead of Swell. The much-awaited Ripple conference will take place the following week. 

The hackathon includes four tracks focused on protocol innovation, agentic finance, lending and borrowing. 

Teams with existing projects have also been encouraged to add XRPL functionality. 

Mastercard’s relations with Ripple 

Mastercard’s relationship with Ripple has gradually expanded over the past year. 

In November 2025, Ripple announced a collaboration with Mastercard, WebBank and Gemini that revolves around Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin. The partnership came after Gemini launched an XRP edition of its Mastercard credit card last August. 

The card allows customers to earn rewards in XRP, including up to 4% back on some purchases. 

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Mastercard subsequently took another major step toward blockchain-based settlement. In June 2026, the company said its network would support settlement with regulated stablecoins including Ripple’s RLUSD. The company also listed the XRP Ledger among the blockchain networks.

Mastercard’s relationship with Ripple predates the RLUSD settlement plans. In 2023, Ripple was selected as one of the initial participants in Mastercard’s CBDC Partner Program.

Ripple and Mastercard have also appeared together in tokenization and institutional blockchain experiments. 

In May, Ripple, JPMorgan, Ondo Finance and Mastercard were involved in a pilot that used the XRP Ledger to complete a cross-border redemption of Ondo’s tokenized US Treasury fund. 

Ripple has also made it to Mastercard’s Crypto Partner Program, which was announced earlier this year.