Ripple has backed AI infrastructure startup t54 in a $5 million seed round, a move that ties the company more closely to the emerging market for autonomous payments and agent-driven financial services. The investment also places XRP Ledger in the frame as one of the networks positioned in the machine-to-machine trading space.
Ripple And XRP Ledger Enter The Race For Agentic Payments
t54 announced on February 25 that its seed round was led by Anagram, PL Capital, and Franklin Templeton, with strategic participation from Ripple, alongside Virtuals Ventures, Blockchain Coinvestors, and ABCDE. The company describes itself as the “trust layer of the agent economy,” focusing on a problem that’s starting to draw more attention as AI systems move from recommendation to execution: how to verify an agent’s identity, assess its risks, and provide accountability when something goes wrong.
That arrangement was echoed by Ripple President Monica Long, who wrote in X that “as independent agents begin to manage and make real money, trust infrastructure becomes a fundamental part of the equation.” He added that Ripple is “proud to be at the forefront of AI development,” naming t54 as a group that is “building the layer of trust in the agent economy.”
The company’s goal is that existing financial channels are built around people, not software that operates according to a mandate. In a press release, founder Chandler Fang put it bluntly:
“We are building the trust infrastructure for the agent economy. Financial systems are designed around human ownership and human decision-making. As agents become autonomous participants, we need agent-native financial primitives—verifiable agent identity (KYA), real-time risk assessment, and programmable accountability—built into how agents operate.”
That thesis is not just who you are in the abstract. t54 says its platform is built around four pillars: identity and authentication, risk and fraud, liability, and a comprehensive operating platform that includes controls and settlement. The idea is to give institutions a way to bind agents to certified engineers or human operators, monitor their behavior in real time, and decide when they should be allowed to make, borrow, or execute a payment flow.
The company also makes direct bets on crypto rails as part of that stack. Among the products it listed is the “XRPL Assistant x402,” which is described as an infrastructure that allows AI agents to pay for services using XRP and RLUSD. It also highlighted the secure open source layer in x402 and said that its ecosystem includes XRPL, Solana, Base, and Virtuals, suggesting that they form a single chain, even if Ripple’s involvement gives XRPL special importance.
That’s important because Ripple’s interest here goes beyond business exposure. Markus Infanger, SVP at RippleX, put this opportunity as a change in the nature of economic actors themselves:
“Autonomous systems participate in economic activities, not just tools. The financial infrastructure that supports them must evolve accordingly. We support t54’s efforts to create knowledge and risk that will be fundamental as AIs operate across payments, treasury, and capital markets.”
Tony Pecore, Franklin Templeton SVP and director of digital asset management, said:
“As institutions adopt tokens and private systems, the infrastructure layer must evolve to match. t54 builds the trust and authentication framework that institutional funds will need as AI agents participate in financial markets.”
t54 also backed up its market argument with research data. It cited a recent YouGov survey showing 42% of US consumers would let an AI agent make a purchase for them if it secured the lowest price.
At the same time, a study from Keyfactor found 86% of cybersecurity professionals believe that autonomous systems and AI agents should have a separate, powerful digital identity. Together, those statistics capture the tension t54 is trying to monetize: a growing willingness to offer financial actions to software, but only with strict controls.
For Ripple and XRPL, the bet is clear. If independent agents become active users of the payment channel, Ripple wants the XRP Ledger infrastructure to be part of that next layer.
At press time, XRP traded at $1.4397.
The featured image was created with DALL.E, a chart from TradingView.com
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