Ripple USD (RLUSD)

Ripple USD (RLUSD) is a stablecoin designed to hold a value of one US dollar, issued by Ripple's New York trust company and launched in December 2024. It is backed by US dollar deposits, short-term US government securities and cash equivalents, and is aimed mainly at institutions: payment companies, exchanges and firms that settle trades and cross-border payments.

RLUSD is separate from XRP (XRP), the volatile native coin of the XRP Ledger (XRPL). RLUSD lives on both the XRP Ledger and Ethereum, where it is an ERC-20 token. It competes with USDC, Tether (USDT) and PayPal USD (PYUSD).

A stablecoin is a digital IOU for a dollar. When a business sends Ripple a dollar, Ripple's trust company creates one RLUSD and puts that dollar, or a very safe short-term government bond, into a ring-fenced account. When the business hands the token back, it gets its dollar and the token is destroyed. The account is checked every month by an outside accounting firm.

The point is speed. A bank wire between countries can take days and pass through several banks; an RLUSD transfer on the XRP Ledger settles in a few seconds, at any hour, and the receiver can turn it back into dollars or local money at the other end. For Ripple, which sells payment services to banks and money transmitters, RLUSD is a dollar that can travel as fast as its software.

Ripple announced plans for a stablecoin in April 2024 and bought Standard Custody & Trust Company, a limited-purpose trust company chartered in New York, the same year to issue it. The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) approved RLUSD in December 2024, and the coin launched on 17 December 2024 on the XRP Ledger and Ethereum. It passed $500 million in circulation by July 2025 and $1 billion late that year. In 2025 Ripple named BNY as the main custodian of the reserves and used RLUSD as collateral at Hidden Road, the prime broker it bought that year. In December 2025 it began testing RLUSD on Ethereum layer-2 networks through the Wormhole bridge. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency conditionally approved a Ripple National Trust Bank in December 2025 and gave final approval on 26 October 2026, when Ripple reported about $2.5 billion of RLUSD in circulation.

RLUSD keeps its peg through one-for-one minting and redemption by approved institutional customers, so traders can profit from closing any gap between the market price and one dollar. Holders do not earn interest; the issuer keeps the income from the reserves, which is how it is paid for running the coin:

• $S$ is the RLUSD supply in circulation, in dollars.
• $y$ is the average annual yield on the reserve assets, written as a decimal.
• $f$ is the fraction of reserves held in interest-earning assets rather than non-interest cash.

With $S = 2{,}500{,}000{,}000$, a reserve yield of 4 percent and 90 percent of reserves in Treasury bills, income would be $2{,}500{,}000{,}000 \times 0.04 \times 0.9 = 90{,}000{,}000$, or about $90 million a year before costs. The figure falls in step with interest rates, which is why stablecoin issuers' revenue rises and falls with central bank policy.

Standard Custody & Trust Company issues RLUSD under NYDFS supervision and keeps the reserves segregated from Ripple's own assets. It publishes monthly attestations by an independent accounting firm of the tokens outstanding and the reserves held, similar in purpose to proof of reserves. Ripple has said its national trust bank will manage the reserves, adding federal supervision on top of the New York charter, while issuance stays with the New York trust company.

• Payments. Ripple uses RLUSD in its payment network to move value between payment corridors; see stablecoins for settlements.
• Trading and collateral. RLUSD is listed on exchanges, used in trading pairs on the XRP Ledger and accepted as margin collateral.
• DeFi. On Ethereum it is used in lending markets and liquidity pools.

In the United States, the GENIUS Act of July 2025 set federal rules for payment stablecoins, including full reserves, monthly disclosure and a ban on issuers paying interest, and Ripple has said it will work with regulators as those rules take effect.

RLUSD is a centrally issued coin that can be frozen or clawed back, and it depends on Ripple, its trust companies and its reserve banks. Most of its supply sits on Ethereum rather than the XRP Ledger, and holders who buy it expecting it to lift the price of XRP may be disappointed, since the two are not linked. National trust charters for crypto firms remain contested by bank trade groups.

• Ripple USD (Ripple)
• New York State Department of Financial Services