Ripple has updated its XRP Ledger developer kit so that AI agents can make payments for data, computing, and other online services in XRP and RLUSD, using the Machine Payments Protocol co-authored by Stripe and the payments blockchain Tempo, together with the Open Wallet settlement standard.

The update gives developers building agent-based services a simpler way to support XRP Ledger payments, without having to choose a blockchain first and then work around its payment standard. The protocols address a practical gap: conventional online payments assume a human customer with an account and a checkout screen, neither of which autonomous software has.

What version 1.1 of the starter kit adds

Version 1.1 of the XRPL AI Starter Kit introduces two external standards to the XRP Ledger. The first is the Machine Payments Protocol, or MPP, developed by Stripe, one of the largest payments processors, and Tempo, the payments blockchain Stripe is building with venture firm Paradigm, for machine-to-machine payments over HTTP The kit will also support the Open Wallet Standard (OWS), which gives software a shared way to manage wallets across multiple blockchains.

RippleX head of product Jazzi Cooper said the aim is to make XRP and RLUSD, Ripple's dollar-pegged stablecoin, available to developers building AI agent services.

The RippleX post also highlights two further additions: xrpl-up, a tool for local payment testing, and a skill for automated trading on the XRPL decentralized exchange.

How MPP payments work on the ledger

MPP follows a simple payment flow: a service responds to a request with an HTTP 402 status — the long-dormant "Payment Required" code from the web's core specification — and a price, the agent approves the payment, and the service then delivers the requested data or service. There is no account or checkout screen in between.

According to the RippleX post, the kit offers two payment modes. The first handles one-off payments in XRP or ledger-issued tokens, with transactions settling in three to five seconds at sub-cent fees — a cost profile relevant to the small, per-request charges machine traffic tends to involve. The second uses XRPL Payment Channels, where an AI agent funds a channel upfront, then sends signed off-chain vouchers as it continues using a service.

The provider can verify those vouchers without making a blockchain call and settle the accumulated balance in a single on-chain transaction. The dev blog post claims the vouchers can be signed at a rate of more than 100,000 per second.

Ripple's bet in a USDC-led market

Ripple previously added support for x402, an earlier web-payment standard introduced by Coinbase that also builds on the HTTP 402 status code, to the XRP Ledger in June, and has now integrated MPP alongside it. The approach is aimed at developers who may have chosen a payment standard before deciding which blockchain to use. By supporting both standards, Ripple can reach applications built by developers who committed to a payment system before settling on the XRP Ledger.

Ripple still faces a formidable challenge in winning developers over. Circle's USDC remains the default currency for agent payments, and it is unclear whether supporting both standards will be enough to give Ripple a larger share of the developer market.

The software is also still in beta. Ripple has not named any commercial customers using the MPP integration, nor has it disclosed any specific payment volume generated from it. Named commercial deployments and disclosed volumes are therefore the most direct signals to watch as the integration competes for developer mindshare.