What Is RLUSD? Ripple's Dollar Stablecoin
7 min read · Updated
RLUSD in one paragraph
RLUSD, short for Ripple USD, is a stablecoin: a token designed to be worth one US dollar at all times. It launched in December 2024 and is issued by a Ripple subsidiary that holds a New York trust charter. You will also see it written as $RLUSD, which is just the ticker with a dollar sign in front. Every RLUSD in circulation is meant to be matched by a dollar of reserves held off-chain in cash and short-term US government debt. It is not XRP, it is not a share in Ripple, and it is not designed to rise in price.
Who issues RLUSD, and under what rules
RLUSD is issued by Standard Custody & Trust Company, a Ripple subsidiary that operates under a limited-purpose trust charter from the New York State Department of Financial Services. That charter matters: it carries reserve and reporting obligations that an offshore issuer does not.
In December 2025 the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency conditionally approved Ripple National Trust Bank, a federally supervised trust bank set to manage the RLUSD reserve and act as collateral trustee for holders. As of September 2026 that puts the RLUSD business under state and federal supervision at the same time.
The backdrop is the GENIUS Act, the US stablecoin law signed in July 2025. It sets out who may issue a payment stablecoin, what the reserves have to look like, and how redemption must work. It also bars issuers from paying interest to holders, a detail that comes back later in this guide.
What backs RLUSD
Ripple states that the backing is one to one:
- US dollar deposits held at banks
- Short-term US Treasuries, the standard reserve asset for regulated dollar tokens
- Cash equivalents, such as overnight repurchase agreements and money market instruments
The reserve sits in custody at BNY, and Ripple publishes a monthly attestation prepared by Deloitte covering the amount of RLUSD in circulation and the composition of the reserve fund.
Read that word carefully. An attestation is an accountant checking a point-in-time statement from management, not a full audit of the issuer, and it does not guarantee that redemptions run smoothly in a panic. It is still far more disclosure than most crypto tokens offer.
Which blockchains RLUSD runs on
RLUSD launched natively on two networks, and both still hold most of the supply:
- The XRP Ledger, where RLUSD is an issued token that needs a trust line
- Ethereum, where it is an ERC-20 token
In June 2026 Ripple extended RLUSD to more networks using Wormhole's Native Token Transfers standard, including Ethereum layer-2 networks such as Base, Optimism, Ink and Unichain, and the XRP Ledger EVM sidechain. Ripple keeps issuance in its own hands, and the bridge moves existing supply between chains instead of minting a wrapped copy.
The practical point: RLUSD on Ethereum and RLUSD on the XRP Ledger are the same token on different rails. Sending one to an address on the other network without a bridge destroys the funds.
RLUSD vs USDT and USDC
Three dollar stablecoins, three different setups. The figures are from early September 2026.
| Feature | RLUSD | USDC | USDT |
|---|---|---|---|
| Issuer | Standard Custody & Trust, a Ripple subsidiary | Circle | Tether |
| Main supervisor | New York DFS, with the OCC over the reserve bank | US federal rules and an EU e-money licence | Offshore, no EU authorisation |
| Approximate market cap | $2.4 billion | $74 billion | $183 billion |
| Reserve reporting | Monthly attestation by Deloitte | Monthly attestation plus an annual audit | Quarterly attestation |
| Home chains | XRP Ledger and Ethereum, plus bridged networks | Ethereum, Solana, Base and many others | Tron, Ethereum and many others |
Size is the honest headline here. RLUSD is a seriously regulated token that is roughly one seventieth the size of USDT. Liquidity, exchange support and app integrations follow size, and RLUSD is still catching up.
Does RLUSD replace XRP?
This is the question most people arrive with, and the answer is no. RLUSD and XRP do different jobs, and Ripple uses both.
Ripple Payments, the company's cross-border product, can settle in XRP or in RLUSD depending on the corridor and on what the customer wants to hold. A business that wants dollar exposure from end to end uses the stablecoin. A corridor where the cheapest route runs through a liquid XRP market uses XRP as the bridge asset. The stablecoin gives Ripple a second tool. It does not remove the first.
Two technical facts hold regardless.
XRP still pays every XRP Ledger fee
Every transaction on the XRP Ledger burns a small amount of XRP as a fee, including transactions that move RLUSD. There is no way to pay an XRP Ledger fee in RLUSD. More RLUSD activity on the ledger means more XRP transactions, not fewer.
XRP is also the native bridge asset of the ledger's built-in decentralized exchange. When pathfinding routes a payment between two issued tokens, XRP is often the hop in the middle.
Holding RLUSD on the XRP Ledger costs XRP
Any token on the XRP Ledger other than XRP is held through a trust line, and a trust line is a ledger object your account owns. Ledger objects cost reserves, and reserves are denominated in XRP.
As of September 2026, an XRP Ledger account needs a base reserve of 1 XRP to exist, plus an owner reserve of 0.2 XRP for each object it owns, including each trust line. Holding RLUSD on the XRP Ledger therefore means holding at least 1.2 XRP that you cannot spend while the trust line is open. The 0.2 XRP comes back when you close the line.
Where to buy or hold RLUSD
RLUSD trades on a growing list of centralized exchanges. Kraken, Bitstamp, Bullish, LMAX Digital, Uphold and Bybit have all listed it, and availability differs by country. Check your own exchange rather than a list in an article; listings change often.
Self-custody works like any token:
- On the XRP Ledger: use a wallet that supports issued tokens, set a trust line to the RLUSD issuer, and keep the XRP reserve described above
- On Ethereum or a layer 2: any wallet that handles ERC-20 tokens works, and you pay gas in ETH
- Through an exchange: simplest, but then the exchange holds the token, not you
Set your trust line to the correct issuer address. Anyone can create a token on the XRP Ledger and call it RLUSD. The ticker is not the identity. The issuer address is.
The risks
A stablecoin is a claim on an issuer, not cash in your pocket. The risks that matter:
- Issuer risk: if the issuer fails or the reserve is mismanaged, the token is worth whatever the estate eventually pays out
- Depeg risk: regulated tokens have broken their peg before, usually because a bank holding part of the reserve got into trouble
- Redemption terms: redeeming directly at par is generally for approved institutional clients, so most people exit through an exchange at the market price
- Regulatory risk: stablecoin rules are new, and in much of the world they are still being written
- Bridge risk: on chains where RLUSD arrives through a bridge, you take on the bridge's risk as well
None of this makes RLUSD unusually dangerous. It makes it a stablecoin.
How big RLUSD is, September 2026
As of early September 2026, RLUSD had a market capitalization of roughly $2.4 billion, up from around $2.0 billion in late August 2026. That is fast growth in percentage terms, from a small base.
Supply is split fairly evenly between the two home chains. In late August 2026 there was roughly $960 million of RLUSD on the XRP Ledger and roughly $1.05 billion on Ethereum.
Numbers like these move weekly. Check a live source before quoting one.
Questions people ask
Is RLUSD the same as XRP?
No. XRP is the native asset of the XRP Ledger, has a fixed supply of 100 billion, and floats in price. RLUSD is a token issued by a company, backed by dollar reserves, and designed to sit at one dollar. They share an ecosystem and a parent company's attention, and nothing else.
Can RLUSD be used to buy XRP?
Yes. RLUSD and XRP trade against each other on centralized exchanges and on the XRP Ledger's own decentralized exchange, so you can swap between them directly. If you trade on the ledger itself, you still need XRP in the account for the fee and the reserve.
Does RLUSD pay interest?
Not from the issuer. Under the GENIUS Act a permitted stablecoin issuer may not pay interest or yield to holders, so the return earned on the reserve stays with Ripple. Some exchanges run their own promotional reward programs on RLUSD balances, and Bybit launched one in July 2026. Those are payments from the exchange, they carry that exchange's counterparty risk, and the advertised rates are marketing rates that can be cut at any time.
Our take
RLUSD is the most straightforward thing in the XRP orbit: a dollar token with a regulated issuer, published reserve reports, and a clear job inside Ripple's payment business. If you use the XRP Ledger and want somewhere stable to sit between trades, it does that job.
What it is not is a reason to change your view on XRP in either direction. It does not replace XRP on the ledger it runs on, and on its own it does not create much new demand for XRP either. It is a dollar. Treat it as one, and remember that this guide is information, not investment advice.