November 14, 2025
The Cash App announced USDC plans and the first XRP ETF went live.
Welcome to the Meridian Update. Somehow we missed J.P. Morgan’s US dollar “deposit token” announcement yesterday. Funny. Let’s dive in.
It is literally called the “Cash” App
The Cash App is literally called the “Cash” App. In 2025, almost every financial technology company is doing something related to on-chain technologies. J.P. Morgan announced a US dollar “deposit token” yesterday, as the Meridian Update shared *checks notes* five sentences ago. PayPal minted $300 trillion of has PYUSD. SoFi is enabling crypto trading on its platform. Even Coinbase is doing more things related to on-chain technologies, with its decentralized exchange (DEX) product rollout. But when you hear “cash,” even if it’s followed by “app,” you don’t exactly think “crypto.”
Well:
“BREAKING: @CashApp, with 57 million monthly users, to enable USDC payments in early 2026.
And it’s powered by Solana”
We have talked about stablecoins many times on the Meridian Update. Here’s how we’ve previously described US dollar stablecoins:
“The idea is for something (a) on-chain to be (b) stably (c) equivalent in value to a US dollar. A way to do this is to hold some number of US dollars off-chain and only have an exactly equivalent number of US dollar tokens on-chain. If people want more US dollars on-chain than you have US dollar tokens, you can add dollars off-chain and increase the number of US dollar tokens on-chain. If people want fewer US dollars on-chain than you have US dollar tokens, you can decrease the number of US dollar tokens on-chain and remove dollars off-chain. The concept is one-to-one backing. This is how USDC works.”
Pretty good! But we did not say that USDC is cash. A dollar bill is definitely cash. Your US dollars in your US dollar-holding bank are cash. But is USDC cash? Or is it a cash equivalent? Or is it something else?
These are questions well above our pay grade. But when an app called Cash App has them, you start to think maybe USDC is cash.
People want exposure to on-chain assets in off-chain ways (part n)
We wrote about the first Solana exchange-traded funds (ETFs) going live on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) at the end of October. These ETFs provided exposure to SOL, the native token of the Solana network, off-chain, specifically on NYSE. One thing we noted was that “volumes were impressive” for the Bitwise Solana ETF. Specifically, it had the most day one inflows of any ETF in 2025 at the time.
XRP is another token. It is the native token of the XRP Ledger. It is affiliated with the company Ripple, which holds a substantial portion of the XRP tokens in circulation. Yesterday, the first XRP spot ETF started trading on the Nasdaq. And it had a big day:
“Congrats to $XRPC for $58m in Day One volume, the most of any ETF launched this year (out of 900), BARELY edging out $BSOL's $57m. The two of them are in [a] league of [their] own [though as 3rd place is over $20m away.”
This is to say volumes for the first XRP spot ETF were impressive. Even more, by a bit, impressive than the first Solana ETF on NYSE. It really seems that people want exposure to on-chain assets in off-chain ways. Speaking of which, it looks like another Solana ETF could start trading as soon as tomorrow.
That’s a wrap
The Cash App announced USDC plans and the first XRP ETF went live. We’ll see you tomorrow morning.
Think we missed something today? Send us a note: email@meridianupdate.com.