Ripple backs Squid’s $6M round as cross-chain usage picks up

Ripple joined Squid’s $6 million funding round. My take: this is not a moonshot bet. It is a bet that moving assets between chains still feels bad enough for serious money to chase the fix.

The round will help Squid expand its consumer platform. Put less neatly, Squid wants cross-chain transfers to stop feeling like a punishment. Why does this matter? Because crypto is still split across networks, wallets, bridges, routing tools, gas rules, and interfaces that often behave like they were built for insiders only. According to CoinDesk, the funding is tied to Squid’s push into easier consumer products.

North Island Ventures led the $6 million round. Other backers included Dialectic, Borderless, Scenius Capital, Altos, and Arche Capital, with angel investors from Axelar, Ledger, Polymer, Enso, and Peanut. Squid plans to use the money to launch consumer products that let regular users move and manage assets across blockchains without staring at the plumbing underneath. That is the part worth watching. Crypto does not need another interface that assumes every user secretly wants to debug a transaction route at 1 a.m.

Squid launched in January 2023. Since then, it has routed more than $6 billion in volume across more than 4 million transactions and more than 1 million users. Real usage matters. The company makes money from enterprise services now and plans to add transaction fees later. Usage plus revenue is a cleaner pitch than another protocol asking investors to believe demand will appear someday. Most funding announcements try to make that sound visionary. That’s only half right. Investors have heard enough of it, especially while regulators and traders keep asking what these products do besides feed speculation.

Squid lets users transfer tokens across networks including Ethereum, Bitcoin, Solana, Cosmos, and XRPL in a single transaction. Its website says it supports more than 100 blockchains and powers cross-chain features for over 1,000 apps, including MetaMask, Ripple, and Ledger. For traders, the appeal is blunt: quicker transfers and fewer dead ends when moving between chains. Lower costs help too. Arbitrage gets easier when assets do not have to crawl through three separate tools first.

The timing fits XRPL’s multichain push. In 2024, Axelar announced the XRPL EVM Sidechain, which connects XRPL to more than 80 blockchains. Squid is the main cross-chain transfer interface for both XRPL and the EVM sidechain. If that works in practice, XRP and other Ripple ecosystem assets could get better liquidity across EVM-compatible chains. Price impact is never guaranteed. I’ll be honest: this is where people often jump too fast from infrastructure news to price predictions. Liquidity does tend to change how traders behave, though.

Squid’s technical base is its Squid Intents execution layer. It uses market makers to complete cross-chain transactions, then settles them through Trusted Execution Environments. The useful part is specific: Squid does not need to deploy contracts on every chain it supports. That helps it work with networks that do not have smart contracts, including Bitcoin and XRPL. Is this just middleware branding? Not entirely. North Island Ventures said Squid has shown that cross-chain infrastructure can earn revenue from actual usage. Christina Rud, Squid’s co-founder, described the product as a full stack system for developers, blockchain foundations, and individual users. Strip away the funding round language and the bet is pretty clear: the cross-chain tools that win will be the ones people can use without caring how many chains sit underneath.

What this means

Ripple’s investment suggests that cross-chain interoperability is still one of the more practical crypto themes attracting capital. Not the loudest theme. Probably the more useful one.

The consumer angle matters. If Squid can make asset movement across Ethereum, Bitcoin, Solana, Cosmos, XRPL, and other chains feel normal, it solves an actual problem. The market is still fragmented. Users still get stuck. Liquidity still sits in separate pools. Counter to the usual advice, better routing does not automatically mean a cleaner market. It may just make movement faster inside the same messy market. Better routing could help tokens move more freely across ecosystems, though I would be careful about reading that as a promise of calmer prices. Crypto is very good at finding new ways to stay messy.

For investors, usage is the cleaner signal. Watch Squid’s transaction count and routed volume first. Active users and the fee rollout come next. Those numbers matter more than partnership language. Axelar is worth watching too because its infrastructure sits underneath much of this connectivity. If more wallets and dApps build cross-chain swaps directly into their products, this stops looking like infrastructure news and starts looking like a change in user behavior. My read: that is the only version of this story that really matters.

XRPL is the other place to watch. More activity on the XRPL EVM Sidechain, more dApp launches, and more assets moving in and out of the Ripple ecosystem would give XRP a stronger utility story. Yes, that sounds like the same infrastructure argument again. Bear with me: the difference is whether users actually show up. New Squid integrations, broader chain support, or large wallet partnerships could matter for traders. I would not treat any single announcement as a trade by itself, but the direction is worth tracking.

FAQ

What is Squid?

Squid is a cross-chain liquidity router that lets users move and swap tokens across blockchain networks.

How much funding did Squid raise?

Squid raised $6 million in a round led by North Island Ventures. Ripple and several other investors also took part.

What is the purpose of this funding?

Squid plans to use the funding to expand its consumer platform and launch products that make cross-chain transactions easier.

Which blockchains does Squid support?

Squid says it supports more than 100 blockchains, including Ethereum, Bitcoin, Solana, Cosmos, and XRPL.

What is the XRPL EVM Sidechain?

The XRPL EVM Sidechain connects XRPL with EVM-compatible networks and, through Axelar, links it to more than 80 blockchains.

How does Squid generate revenue?

Squid makes money from enterprise services today and plans to add transaction fees later.

What is the Squid Intents execution layer?

The Squid Intents execution layer uses market makers and Trusted Execution Environments to complete cross-chain transactions without deploying contracts on every supported chain.

Who are some of Squid’s notable integrations?

Squid powers cross-chain features for more than 1,000 applications, including MetaMask, Ripple, and Ledger.

What does Ripple’s investment mean?

Ripple’s investment suggests the company sees cross-chain asset movement as useful for XRPL and the wider crypto market.

How does cross-chain interoperability help users?

Cross-chain interoperability can make transfers faster and cheaper, reduce friction, and give users more routes between blockchain networks.