Ripple Faces Major Challenger As Circle Enters Payments Arena

Circle’s decision to unveil the Circle Payments Network (CPN) on 21 April has set the stage for the first head‑to‑head contest between a fully reserved stable‑asset rail and Ripple’s decade‑old Ripple Payments (formerly On-Demand Liquidity – ODL) product.

Circle Enters Payments Arena

Announced in a post on X, Circle describes CPN as “a streamlined way for financial institutions to connect, orchestrating global money movement, powered by stablecoins like USDC and EURC for 24/7 real‑time settlement.” The company promises programmability, constant availability and “internet‑speed” settlement for four initial verticals—invoice settlement, remittances, treasury flows and payroll—while signalling that over twenty institutions have already joined as design partners.

Although Circle has long issued the second‑largest dollar stablecoin, until now it had refrained from owning the payment rail itself. CPN changes that calculus. According to the newly released white paper, CPN is “a new protocol layer in a comprehensive, open and internet‑based settlement system—with USDC, EURC, and eventually other regulated payment stablecoins at its core.”

The governance stack places Circle in the role of operator, standard‑setter and compliance gatekeeper, requiring every participating entity—termed a “Participating Financial Institution,” or PFI—to satisfy stringent licencing and AML/CFT criteria before accessing the network.

At a technical level the network begins life as an off‑chain orchestration layer that broadcasts signed transfers to public blockchains, but it is already mapped to migrate into a smart‑contract protocol with optional “undo” windows and on‑chain FX routing. In its final form, stablecoin swaps, liquidity discovery and settlement guarantees are envisaged to occur entirely on‑chain, while confidentiality features allow counterparties to mark transactions as private and expose them selectively to regulators or auditors.

For banks, payment processors and virtual‑asset service providers the commercial draw is explicit. CPN levies three charges—payout fees, FX spreads and a variable network fee—and pledges to reinvest a part of the revenue into infrastructure upgrades and developer grants, thereby seeding a marketplace of value‑added modules from custody to fraud analytics. Circle argues that this model “aligns incentives across network members, end users, builders, and service providers to encourage network growth and sustainability.”

Circle Vs Ripple

The competitive overlap with Ripple is immediate and visible. Of the first‑wave partners—Alfred, BVNK, CoinMENA, Coinsph, dLocal, FOMO Pay, Onafriq, WorldRemit, Yellowcard and others—several are also Ripple Payment corridors.

That duplication was not lost on Panos Mekras, co-founder of Anodos Finance, who told followers: “Ok, this is big. Circle just launched a direct Ripple competitor… Game is on.” Community member Xoom echoed the sentiment: “Competition results in more growth & innovation.”

Ian Lee, co‑founder of Syndicate DAO, offered the sharper strategic take: “This is going after what Ripple and XRP were supposed to, but with stablecoins. Has a much better chance at being adopted since it is more compatible with existing financial institutions’ business models.”

Community member xoom (@Mr_Xoom) commented: “This is huge. Circle just announced CPN, a competitor to Ripple payments (aka ODL). Will be fun to see the competition. Competition results in more growth & innovation.”

At press time, XRP traded at $2.09.