Ripple's RLUSD Sets a $2.44B Record, Mostly Outside the XRP Ledger

Key Takeaways

The Number on the Board

Data aggregators flagged a fresh all-time high of $2.442 billion for RLUSD this week. Defillama’s stablecoin tracker showed $2.42 billion in circulation on Monday, Sept. 14, compared with about $2.41 billion a week earlier and $1.72 billion a month ago. That is a 41% climb in 30 days for a token designed to do nothing but hold $1.

The pace has held for weeks as RLUSD had crossed $2 billion by Aug. 25, when Bitcoin.com News counted about $962.8 million on the XRP Ledger and $1.05 billion on Ethereum. At the end of July, total supply stood at $1.58 billion.

Where Did the New Dollars Go?

This is where the record gets more interesting than the headline number. In July, the XRP Ledger held $907.2 million of RLUSD, or 58.9% of supply, while Ethereum held $632.2 million.

Today, the split runs the other way, with trackers listing $1.37 billion on Ethereum and $1.05 billion on the XRP Ledger. Ethereum’s balance has more than doubled since July, up roughly $737 million, while the XRP Ledger added about $146 million. Of the roughly $840 million in new supply, Ethereum took the large majority.

That does not mean the XRP Ledger is shrinking, given its total stablecoin base of about $1.14 billion ranks 11th across all networks, just ahead of Aptos and Plasma. Robinhood Chain, which only launched on July 1, sits three spots lower at $1.04 billion.

The data cannot say who minted the new tokens, so the split alone does not identify which clients drove it. It only shows where fresh RLUSD is parked. Ripple has also pushed the token beyond its two home chains, adding Optimism, Base, Ink, Unichain and the XRPL EVM Sidechain through Wormhole in June.

What Is Pulling Supply up?

Distribution: RLUSD went live on Korea’s four largest exchanges by late July, with Upbit opening markets on July 27 and Bithumb following on July 29. Activity followed: $11.81 billion moved across 1.39 million transfers in the 30 days to Aug. 25. Regulation: Ripple issues RLUSD under a New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) limited-purpose trust charter held by its subsidiary Standard Custody & Trust Company, with BNY as primary reserve custodian, as the company laid out in a Sept. 12 explainer. Funds: The high can be tied to spot XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs) soaking up capital. U.S. spot XRP ETFs logged 11 straight sessions of inflows worth $170 million through Sept. 1, lifting cumulative inflows to $1.68 billion since their November launch. In one session last week, XRP funds added $5.14 million while bitcoin ETFs shed $283 million.

XRP is currently trading around the $1.37 range, up from $1.06 at the end of July. At the same time, bitcoin’s price sits near $77,600 after a weekend that looked shaky.