Can XRP be used as collateral like US Treasuries?

The full answer

Treasuries sit at the top of the collateral ladder and XRP sits well below it. The gap shows in two numbers: how much of the asset’s value a lender counts, and whether the official lenders of last resort take it at all.

How are Treasuries treated as collateral?

Almost at face value. The Federal Reserve’s discount window, where banks borrow from the central bank, publishes a margins table “Effective Date: July 1, 2026.” For Treasuries it lends 99% of fair value up to three years to maturity, 98% for three to five years, 97% for five to ten years and 95% beyond ten.[1] CME Clearing, which holds margin for futures traders, says it applies a 0.5% haircut to Treasury bills and 1% to 8% to notes and bonds, depending on maturity.[2]

Does the US Treasury or the Federal Reserve accept XRP as collateral?

No such acceptance was found. The discount window’s eligibility page says securities “must meet the regulatory definition of ‘investment grade’ at a minimum,” and lists Treasuries, agency, corporate and municipal debt; it does not mention crypto assets of any kind.[3] CME Clearing’s acceptable-collateral page, as read on September 29, 2026, listed no cryptocurrency either; that page could not be saved for an independent check.[2] No US Treasury or Federal Reserve acceptance of XRP as collateral was found in searches on September 29, 2026. Whether any US government body has chosen XRP for any role is covered on has the US government chosen XRP.

How do haircuts on Treasuries, equities, gold and bitcoin compare with XRP’s?

The published figures, as read on September 29, 2026:

• Treasury bills at CME: 0.5% haircut.[2]
• Gold at CME: 15%.[2]
• ETFs at CME: 25%. Stocks at CME: 30%.[2]
• Bitcoin at Nexo: 50% loan-to-value, which is a 50% haircut.[4]
• XRP at Nexo: 30% loan-to-value, which is a 70% haircut.[5]

These come from different kinds of lender, a clearing house and a crypto lender, so they are not one table. They still show the order. By our calculation, $100 million of Treasury bills counts as about $99.5 million at CME, while $100 million of XRP supports at most $30 million of borrowing at Nexo.

Bank capital rules widen the gap. Law firm Skadden summarizes the Basel Committee’s standard as giving crypto assets that fail its hedging-recognition test “a risk weight of 1,250%,” and as capping a bank’s “aggregate exposure to Group 2 cryptoassets” at 1% of its Tier 1 capital.[6] Skadden does not say which group XRP falls in. How lenders set these numbers is on how much you can borrow against XRP.

Where does the idea that XRP is already Treasury-grade collateral come from?

Mostly from headlines about tokenized Treasuries. A crypto.news piece on June 18, 2026 ran under the headline “XRP is already settling Wall Street’s treasuries.” The article itself says “JPMorgan, Mastercard, and Ondo settled a tokenized US Treasury on the XRP Ledger in May,” and describes Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin as “a credible on-chain dollar leg for settlement.”[7] That is a Treasury bond moving on the XRP Ledger. It is not XRP being accepted as collateral. Whether tokenized bonds on the ledger can themselves back loans is covered on can tokenized Treasuries be turned into cash or credit.

What is the right milestone for XRP collateral?

On our reading, it is private firms taking XRP as security in regulated markets, which the two companies below say has started. Ripple said on November 3, 2025 that Ripple Prime’s US clients “can cross-margin OTC spot transactions and holdings with the rest of their digital asset portfolio, including OTC swaps and CME futures and options.”[8] Bitnomial, a US exchange and clearinghouse regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said “RLUSD and XRP margin deposits are now available for institutional clients.”[9] No haircut for XRP from either company was found as of September 29, 2026. The steps from here are laid out on does XRP meet the tests for institutional collateral, and what official US use of XRP would look like is on signs the US government is using XRP.

What could narrow the gap?

The Federal Reserve says its own margins are designed to account for the historical price volatility of each collateral category, and this page found no source measuring how much XRP’s price swings drive the haircuts at CME or Nexo. What happens to a loan when those swings go the wrong way is on what happens to an XRP-backed loan if the price drops.