RLUSD has climbed past $2 billion in market capitalization, with more than half of its supply now issued on the XRP Ledger as Ripple seeks to expand the stablecoin’s role across tokenized assets, payments and credit markets.
Ripple’s U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin RLUSD has crossed the $2 billion market-cap threshold, with over $1 billion of the token’s supply residing on the XRP Ledger, according to Jack McDonald, Ripple’s senior vice president in charge of stablecoins.
McDonald announced the achievement on X, formerly Twitter, noting that it came less than two years after RLUSD was introduced. The Crypto Basic was among the first outlets to report the development.
The milestone points to a broader strategy than simply increasing RLUSD’s circulating supply. Ripple is increasingly positioning the stablecoin as dollar-based infrastructure for settling transactions involving tokenized assets, payments and lending.
Ripple’s RLUSD Reaches a New Milestone
McDonald said the amount of RLUSD issued directly on the XRP Ledger has surpassed $1 billion. That figure represents XRP Ledger issuance and should not be confused with RLUSD’s total market capitalization across different networks.
The announcement was made in early September and was based on McDonald’s own statement rather than figures from an independent blockchain analytics provider.
That distinction is relevant because market-cap data can vary between platforms depending on when it is recorded and how the figures are calculated. The issuance figures and network breakdown cited by McDonald come directly from Ripple’s leadership.
The XRP Ledger’s increased activity in recent months also provides context for Ripple’s decision to emphasize RLUSD’s growing presence on the network.
Ripple Wants RLUSD to Become a Settlement Layer
Ripple’s broader plan is to use RLUSD as the dollar component in transactions involving tokenized assets, while XRP continues to provide utility for other functions across the XRP Ledger.
The company has also invested in firms such as ZILO and Licuido as it works to expand the financial infrastructure supporting tokenized markets on the ledger.
If traditional financial institutions continue moving securities, investment funds and other assets onto blockchain networks, demand for stable, dollar-denominated settlement assets could increase. Ripple’s infrastructure investments and RLUSD expansion appear designed to capture that potential demand.
The $2B Milestone Is Only One Measure
McDonald celebrated RLUSD’s move above $2 billion but emphasized that market capitalization alone does not fully measure the stablecoin’s progress. The comments frame the milestone as an important stage in RLUSD’s development rather than its ultimate objective.
Some of the stablecoin’s recent growth has also been supported by exchange incentives, meaning increased deposits do not necessarily translate directly into institutional payment activity.
Bybit’s Hold and Earn campaign, for example, attracted more than $50 million worth of RLUSD deposits within 11 days. Ripple and Bybit later expanded the initiative with a second phase featuring enhanced rewards for XRP and RLUSD holders.
Such programs demonstrate strong user demand, but they are not by themselves evidence of sustained real-world payment adoption. Ripple’s efforts to introduce RLUSD into lending markets could prove more important for its longer-term utility.
Through partnerships with Clearpool and Cicada Credit, Ripple is working to direct RLUSD into financing for fintech and payments businesses operating on the XRP Ledger. Another initiative in Kenya, involving MC Social Venture, BlockBima and Fortune Credit, aims to improve access to insurance and credit for small businesses.
Ripple said the Kenya project reduced settlement times by 97% while cutting costs by approximately 3,000 times. If those improvements can be replicated on a larger scale, they could become a more meaningful measure of RLUSD’s utility than its market capitalization alone.
It is still too early to determine whether RLUSD’s supply growth will lead to substantially deeper liquidity or higher overall capitalization across the XRP Ledger. Existing data has not yet confirmed that connection.
The expansion of tokenized real-world assets on the XRP Ledger will therefore remain an important metric as Ripple seeks to establish RLUSD as a key settlement asset for institutional finance.
