Ripple Labs just announced an investment of $5m in blockchain research and education in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. This funding is part of Ripple’s University Blockchain Research Initiative (UBRI), a global program for supporting academic research and blockchain innovation.
This move comes after ripples of the ongoing effort to grow its influence in the APAC region, which is known for rapid fintech development and welcoming digital asset regulations. With these $ 5 million investors, Ripple is expanding its partnerships with leading universities across six countries, including Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Singapore, and more.
“Asia-Pacific has long been a hub of fintech and blockchain innovation, and Ripple has been proud to invest in the region’s academic talent from the very beginning,” said Eric van Miltenburg, Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at Ripple
UBRI, which began in 2018, now supports 60 universities globally, with 13 based in APAC. Ripple’s new funding takes its overall contribution to more than $11m in Asia, showing the company’s long-term focus on building a strong blockchain ecosystem within this rapidly growing market.
One standout project comes from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. According to Professor Yang Liu, “Ripple’s generous UBRI grant significantly enhances our research and development efforts… We are developing an autonomous AI agent network on the XRP Ledger”
Meanwhile, the company has also invested in Korea University over six years, focusing on advancing blockchain research in areas such as scalability, privacy, and cryptographic security.
This builds upon existing partnerships between Ripple Labs and other Korean institutions such as Yonsei University and Hanyang University. which are exploring cutting-edge technologies like privacy-enhancing zk-SNARKs and layer-2 scaling solutions.
At the same time, in Taiwan, Ripple has partnered with the National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) to explore real-world asset (RWA) tokenization on the XRP Ledger, as well as cross-chain functionality involving Ethereum and Solana.
Australia is also a key focus, with Ripple committing $1.3 million in funding through partnerships with the Australian National University (ANU), while joining hands with the university to support advanced blockchain coursework and research.
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