Ripple said on Aug. 25 that its RLUSD stablecoin crossed $2 billion in market capitalization during the previous week, less than two years after its December 2024 launch.
Summary
- RLUSD crossed $2 billion in market value less than two years after its global launch.
- Nearly $1 billion of RLUSD was issued on XRP Ledger, according to Ripple’s latest update.
- Ethereum held slightly more RLUSD than XRP Ledger when the stablecoin passed the milestone overall.
- Standard Custody issues RLUSD under New York oversight and maintains segregated reserve accounts for holders.
- Ripple publicly reported $1.98 billion in reserves against $1.87 billion circulating on August 20, 2026.
Close to $1 billion of the circulating supply had been issued on the XRP Ledger, according to Ripple’s official statement. CoinGecko subsequently placed RLUSD’s market capitalization at approximately $2.11 billion, based on a circulating supply of about 2.1 billion tokens.
Because RLUSD seeks to maintain a $1 price, its market capitalization closely tracks its circulating token supply. The milestone therefore reflects additional issuance rather than price appreciation.
RLUSD supply approaches an even network split
Ripple initially launched RLUSD natively on the XRP Ledger and Ethereum. On-chain figures around the milestone placed roughly $963 million on the XRP Ledger and approximately $1.05 billion on Ethereum.
Ethereum therefore held a slightly larger share when the total passed $2 billion. Ripple’s description that “close to $1B” had been issued on the XRP Ledger was consistent with the available ledger data.
Ripple has since expanded RLUSD beyond its original networks. Its current documentation lists Base, Ink, Optimism, Unichain and the XRPL EVM sidechain alongside Ethereum and the XRP Ledger.
The documentation does not provide a live supply breakdown for every supported network. Ethereum and the XRP Ledger continued to account for most circulating RLUSD when Ripple announced the milestone.
New York rules govern RLUSD reserves
Standard Custody & Trust Company, a Ripple subsidiary, issues RLUSD under a limited-purpose trust charter supervised by the New York State Department of Financial Services.
Ripple says every token is backed by cash or permitted cash equivalents held in segregated reserve accounts. Eligible assets include short-term U.S. Treasury bills, government money market funds, overnight repurchase agreements and bank deposits.
Ripple’s transparency page showed $1.981 billion in reserve funds against $1.866 billion of circulating RLUSD as of Aug. 20. That official snapshot preceded the reported $2 billion milestone.
The company publishes monthly independent attestations prepared by Deloitte. However, attestations are retrospective and do not provide real-time verification of reserves following every mint or redemption.
Institutional projects are adding RLUSD use cases
Ripple markets RLUSD for payments, trading collateral, tokenized assets and institutional finance. The company has also backed a planned credit fund that would issue RLUSD-denominated working-capital loans to fintech and payments businesses.
As crypto.news reported, Ripple joined Clearpool and Cicada to develop an institutional RLUSD credit fund. The product remains under development, and its planned size has not been disclosed.
FXRP gained access to an RLUSD lending vault through Flare and Morpho, creating another use for the stablecoin in decentralized lending.
These integrations provide possible channels for RLUSD demand, but Ripple has not published data showing how much of the latest supply growth came from payments, exchange liquidity, collateral or internal treasury activity.
RLUSD growth does not confirm higher XRP demand
RLUSD activity on the XRP Ledger creates transactions that require small XRP fees. However, stablecoin issuance does not automatically create matching demand for XRP as an investment.
Users can hold and transfer RLUSD without maintaining a large XRP position. The ledger’s reserve and transaction-fee requirements create some XRP demand, but the amount may remain small relative to XRP’s total supply and trading market.
Ripple said RLUSD “is just getting started,” a forward-looking company claim rather than a measurable forecast. The next figures to watch include monthly issuance, redemption activity, transfer volume, network distribution and updated reserve attestations.
A sustained rise in external payments and settlement volume would provide stronger evidence of adoption than supply growth alone. Ripple has not announced a deadline for its next network expansion or supply target.
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